Ethical Stack.

Liquid API

Liquid-hosted access to text and decision models, with API keys and billing managed in Liquid Console.

Score calculation

(3 + 3 + 2 + 2 + 2) ÷ 5 = 2.4

5 of six dimensions rated. Unrated dimensions are excluded from the average.

Full scoring method ↗
Setup details

Direct Liquid Console/API service; OpenRouter and other resellers have separate data-handling terms.

What fits your needs

Direct Liquid Console/API service; OpenRouter and other resellers have separate data-handling terms.

What it does

Liquid-hosted access to text and decision models, with API keys and billing managed in Liquid Console.

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More Liquid tools

Pipette benchmarks models on devices; Liquid Finetune customizes them. These are developer utilities, separate from the hosted inference API.

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Privacy add-on

ShieldFlow is an early-access local redaction proxy for supported AI services. It still forwards cleaned prompts to the selected provider and is not a substitute for that provider’s privacy terms.

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Tradeoffs to expect

Hosted handling

Standard public terms permit training on submitted content. Use a written alternative agreement if you need a no-training commitment.

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How to switch

Get started

Open the official service, check account terms and choose an available model.

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Practical questions

Data path

Prompts leave your device. Public service terms allow content reuse and flexible retention unless separate terms apply.

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Use limitations

A third-party model, backend or service keeps its own terms and safeguards.

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Energy practices

3/10↑

The hosting route is described, but its electricity supply and full footprint are not.

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This rating credits documented practices, not assumed energy savings. Liquid documents a hosted route. The API pricing page offers cached-input pricing on the listed text model; that is a reuse option, not evidence of clean power or measured carbon savings.

1 + 1 reporting + 0 electricity + 1 controls = 3/10. This grades documented practices and transparency.

Comparable task-level electricity, water, training footprint and independently verified clean-power sourcing are not published for this choice.

Reporting1/3
The documented route identifies where inference can run, without an audited environmental footprint.
Electricity sourcing0/3
No attributable electricity procurement or hourly clean-power evidence was found in the cited material.
Resource controls1/3
Cached-input pricing gives one documented reuse option; availability depends on the selected model.

Water disclosure

Water reporting has not been assessed for this choice.

Training data

—Depends on the model↑

Training-data rights depend on the model you run.

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This service or engine can run different Liquid models. A single training-data rating would hide those differences. Check the chosen model’s profile and any base model it builds on; local processing and enterprise no-training terms concern new inputs, not permission for the original training data.

The selected model, checkpoint and any customer fine-tuning data determine the training-rights assessment.

Your data & privacy

3/10↑

Standard hosted terms allow content reuse for model training and leave retention open-ended.

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Liquid’s standard service terms grant rights to use submitted content for training, fine-tuning and evaluation, and allow retention as reasonably necessary. Separate service or enterprise terms can override this. This score covers the standard public route, not a negotiated no-training contract.

3/10 reflects standard content-training rights and retention discretion; a separately negotiated agreement can change the assessment.

A fixed deletion period, default training opt-out and the exact subprocessors for this account are not specified in the reviewed public terms.

Openness

2/10↑

The service is proprietary; some related models and developer tools are published.

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The reviewed official sources do not offer the complete application or serving engine under an open-source license. Liquid’s published weights, MIT-licensed Finetune tools and Apache-licensed Pipette clients are separate artifacts and do not make this service open.

2/10 credits limited public technical documentation; the application/engine itself remains proprietary.

Complete production source and independently reproducible service behavior are not publicly supplied.

Worker protections

2/10↑

Liquid publishes hiring and wellbeing commitments, but little evidence about its wider AI workforce.

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Its careers page commits to equal opportunity and interview accommodations; company values mention wellbeing. These earn limited policy credit. The reviewed sources provide no contractor pay standards, protected grievance channel or independent evidence covering annotation, moderation and other AI supply-chain work. These findings concern the developer or operator. This product’s use in a particular deployment needs separate evidence.

1 + 1 + 0 + 0 = 2/10. Documented worker protections; missing disclosure is an evidence gap.

Contractor conditions, worker representation, grievance outcomes and independent workforce audits remain undisclosed.

Pay & conditions1/3
Public equal-opportunity and accommodation commitments provide basic policy evidence.
Worker voice & remedy0/3
No worker grievance or representation safeguard was found in the reviewed public material.
Evidence & follow-through0/3
No independent worker-level implementation review was supplied in these sources.
Workers rubric ↗

Military ties

2/10Operational military support↑

Liquid actively offers tactical AI for threat detection, ISR and uncrewed systems.

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Liquid’s defense page markets on-device models for combat-relevant intelligence and autonomous systems. We treat that operational offering as direct military enablement under the rubric, which caps the score at 2. Its general service terms prohibit unlawful harm and permit suspension, but do not rule out defense use. This is evidence of an offering, not proof that any particular checkpoint has been deployed by a named military customer. These findings concern the developer or operator. This product’s use in a particular deployment needs separate evidence.

1 + 1 use restrictions + 1 enforcement & oversight + 1 relationship disclosure = 4, capped at 2/10. Known defense ties lower this rating; safeguards can improve it within the relationship’s cap.

Named defense contracts, actual deployments, customer screening and independent oversight are not disclosed on the reviewed page.

Use restrictions1/4
General prohibitions cover unlawful harm; no blanket restriction on operational military use is stated.
Enforcement & oversight1/3
Terms allow suspension for violations, without a disclosed military-use review process.
Relationship disclosure1/2
The defense offering is public, but customers, contract scope and deployments are not named.

The vendor explicitly offers tactical threat detection, ISR, dismounted-team decision support and onboard perception for autonomous uncrewed systems; this is operational military enablement, without a claim of a named contract. The relationship limits this grade to 2/10.

Military rubric ↗

BDS targets

Not listed↑

Liquid AI is not named in the checked BNC boycott and technology target lists.

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The BNC consumer guide and No Tech campaign page do not name Liquid AI as a boycott or pressure target. This is a limited campaign-list finding; it is not an endorsement or a wider assessment of every supplier or customer. The defense offering is assessed separately in military ties. These findings concern the developer or operator. This product’s use in a particular deployment needs separate evidence.

The checked lists do not identify every commercial relationship or local campaign.

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