Failures / Standard term
Over-refusal
Refusing a request that the applicable policy and context permit, or blocking more of the request than the policy requires.
A model may reject benign historical analysis, authorized security work, fictional writing, or a permitted health-information request because it mistakes surface words for a prohibited intent. A partial refusal can also be excessive when a safe, useful portion of the task could have been completed. Whether a refusal is wrong depends on the actual product policy and available context.
Builder example
False refusals reduce task completion and can push users toward unsafe workarounds. Evaluation should distinguish permitted, prohibited, and ambiguous cases rather than treating the total refusal rate as either a safety score or a usefulness score.
Common confusion: A refusal is not inherently a sign of good safety engineering. Some refusals are product failures that prevent legitimate use. Treating every refusal as cautious wisdom masks a real usability problem.