Live streaming platform Twitch is now allowing Amazon, its parent company, to use streamer content to train generative AI models, with the feature enabled by default. Unsurprisingly, the move has sparked backlash from the platform’s community, particularly because creators have to manually opt out rather than explicitly agreeing to have their content used for AI training.
For Amazon, Twitch represents a potentially valuable source of training data, with thousands of hours of livestreamed video and audio uploaded to the platform. However, creators are concerned that their streams, voices and other content could be used to train generative AI models without them realising it, especially given how many hours some streamers spend broadcasting each week.
Twitch Knows Creators Aren’t Happy
Twitch’s announcement was itself framed around the ability to opt out, rather than announcing that creators would be opted in by default. The company said it was “adding a setting that lets you opt out” of having channel content used to train generative AI content models across Amazon.
That wording also led to confusion over whether Twitch content had already been used for AI training. During a stream on Twitch’s official channel, Chief Product Officer Mike Minton was asked whether creators’ videos had already been used, but admitted that he did not know what Amazon had previously used for model training.
Naturally, many viewers expressed their opposition to generative AI in the chat. When asked why the feature was not opt-in, Minton gave a particularly blunt explanation: “If it was opt in, nobody would opt in. That’s honestly the answer.”
Minton acknowledged that the decision was unpopular, but argued that Twitch was at least giving creators the ability to refuse having their content used for generative AI training. He also suggested that publicly available content is likely already being scraped by other AI companies, whether permitted or not.
Opting Out Won’t Affect Your Reach
The good news is that switching off the setting will not affect how a creator’s channel is discovered on Twitch. Minton specifically said opting out has “zero impact” on discoverability or a creator’s ability to be found on the platform.
However, opting out only applies to training generative AI models. It does not prevent Twitch from using AI or machine learning elsewhere, with the company noting that systems such as AutoMod, captions and other platform features may still process user data.
Minton explained that many of Twitch’s existing systems rely on targeted AI models, including automatically transcribing audio across the platform. This enables features such as stream summaries while also helping Twitch with moderation and understanding content across the service.
How To Opt Out Of Twitch’s Generative AI Training
If you do not want your Twitch channel content to be used for training generative AI models, you can disable the setting from either the web or mobile app. You only need to do this once, as the preference applies across both.
On the web:
- Click your avatar in the top-right corner.
- Go to Settings > Security and Privacy.
- Scroll down to Training for Generative AI.
- Toggle the setting off.
On the Twitch mobile app:
- Open your profile.
- Go to Settings > Security and Privacy.
- Find Training for Generative AI.
- Toggle the setting off.
Again, it is worth reminding that disabling this option does not opt you out of every AI or machine learning feature on Twitch. It specifically prevents your channel content from being used to train generative AI models, while other AI-powered features required to operate Twitch may continue to process your content.
