A hot potato: Amazon has been using Twitch content to train its generative AI models for years, though it's never been exactly forthcoming about this fact. Now, the streaming platform has confirmed this does happen, and those who don't want to participate must opt out.<\/p>\n
Twitch announced on its official X channel that it has added a setting that allows users to opt out of having their channel content used to train generative AI models across Amazon.<\/p>\n
X's user-added context box notes that opting out will not prevent your data being used if you chat on someone else's stream and they never opted out of the training.<\/p>\n
The fact that users have been automatically opted in to this AI training for years is causing a lot of anger. At a 2024 event held by The Information, Twitch's chief monetization officer at the time, Mike Minton, was asked if Amazon uses Twitch to train AI models.<\/p>\n
"Yeah, for sure," he said. "I mean, I think obviously within the bounds of user trust within the bounds of privacy regulations, which vary all around the world, but of course we have a role to play in that."<\/p>\n
But Amazon never made it clear that this AI training was taking place, leading to plenty of angry posts. There was also a Twitch User Voice thread on the issue posted in May. It called for the AI training to be optional, with users opted out by default.<\/p>\n
During a livestream yesterday, Minton showed a remarkable amount of honesty for an executive when asked about the opt-in versus opt-out argument. "If it was opt in, nobody would opt in," he said, adding that most people can probably appreciate this reasoning. Minton also said that almost every content service in the world is on by default \u2013 in some cases, like Meta, the only way to stop it from happening is to make an account private.<\/p>\n
they know we don't want it. they do not care.<\/p>\n
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Twitch head of community Mary Kish, who was also on the stream alongside Minton, suggested that Amazon was doing Twitch users a favor by including an opt-out button, calling it "a reflection of reacting to this community's voice that you are not wanting to train Gen AI models, and we want to give you that option."<\/p>\n
Minton dodged the question when he was asked if Amazon has already been using streamers' content for AI training, even though he seemingly confirmed this a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n
"I don't actually know the answer to that question because I don't know what Amazon [\u2026] has done in terms of model training and what they've used and not used," he said.<\/p>\n
Minton isn't wrong about nobody wanting to opt in. Twitch streamers are rightly concerned about their livelihoods being threatened by AI, especially one they helped train without compensation.<\/p>\n