Once again, Twitch has shown the gaming and streaming community that not only does it consistently fail to read the room, but it also doesn’t seem to care when it does. And with the ongoing issue of companies using generative AI to create content, train models, and in some cases use content that people never agreed to hand over in the first place, Twitch has decided to double down and jump right into the middle of it.
Twitch recently revealed that it will allow streamer and creator content to be used to train generative AI models at Amazon. That includes streams, VODs, clips, chats, images, and other content tied to your channel. Now, at least Twitch gives you the option to opt out, which is better than nothing, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that everyone is opted in by default.
So, unless you go into your settings and turn this off yourself, your content can be used to help train Amazon’s generative AI models. Because apparently making sure people actually agree to something first wasn’t the direction Twitch wanted to go.
I’m not 100% against AI and I feel it has its uses, and when it’s used properly it can be an extremely useful tool. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. When you take someone’s work, someone’s voice, someone’s videos, someone’s streams, and then use that content to help train your own models without asking them first, I have an issue with that.
And let’s not forget that Twitch and Amazon aren’t some small companies just trying to figure things out. Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the world, while Twitch has spent years making money off the people who stream on its platform. These creators put in the hours, build their communities, entertain people, and help keep Twitch alive, yet now their content can also be used to help Amazon improve its AI models, and they’re not getting anything in return for it.
No compensation. No revenue share. Nothing. That is exactly the sort of thing that pisses people off when it comes to AI, because once again it feels like a corporation looking at something someone else created and saying, “Yeah, we can use that.”
However, if that part doesn’t bother you, then let’s look at what Twitch’s Chief Product Officer, Mike Minton, had to say about why everyone was opted in by default. Because this is where it gets even worse.
During a Twitch livestream, Minton was asked why the company didn’t simply make this an opt-in feature and let creators decide if they wanted their content to be used. His response was, “If this was opt-in, nobody would opt in. That’s honestly the answer.”
Seriously? So, Twitch already knows that most people wouldn’t agree to this if they were asked, and instead of respecting that, the decision was to turn it on for everyone anyway. How does that make any sense outside of “we want the content, so we’re going to make sure we get as much of it as possible until people notice and turn it off?”
If you already know people don’t want something, then maybe that’s your answer. Maybe you shouldn’t make it the default and then act like you’re doing everyone a favor because there’s an opt-out button buried in the settings.
Minton also explained that other streaming services and platforms do similar things and that Twitch is being respectful by at least allowing people to opt out. But come on. If this was really about respecting creators, everyone would be opted out by default, Twitch would explain exactly what it wants to use the content for, and then people could decide whether they wanted to participate. That’s respecting the community. Turning it on because you already know nobody would voluntarily turn it on isn’t.
So, What Can You Do?
First, turn that mess off.
Head over to Twitch, click your profile picture, go to Settings, then Security and Privacy. Scroll down until you see the section for “Training for Generative AI” and disable the option that allows your channel content to be used to train generative AI content models at Amazon.
There is one thing you should know, though. Turning this setting off doesn’t stop Twitch from using AI and machine learning for other features on the platform, such as recommendations, captions, AutoMod, and other systems. This setting is specifically about using your content to train Amazon’s generative AI models.
After that, make some noise about it. Email Twitch. Talk about it on social media. Tell other streamers who may not even know this setting exists yet. Send a smoke signal if you have to. Whatever works, because people need to know this was turned on by default.
At the end of the day, I don’t care if you’re completely against AI, completely for it, or somewhere in the middle like I am. That’s not the point. The point is that if a company wants to use your work to train its AI models, you should be the one who decides whether they can do it.
And when Twitch’s own Chief Product Officer admits that they made it opt-out because they knew nobody would opt in, that pretty much tells you everything you need to know about how this decision was made.
