‘If it was opt in, nobody would opt in’: Twitch is using streamers’ content to train generative AI by default

Twitch users have started objecting to the site’s use of their content being used to train generative AI models by default.

The company posted a message via its support account on X on Wednesday, telling users that it had added a setting that “lets you opt out of having your channel content used to train generative AI content models across Amazon“.

The message has resulted in backlash from users who don’t want their content being used to train generative AI models, and who believe there should have been an option to ‘opt in’, instead of everyone being opted in by default until they realise it’s happening and opt out.

To opt out, users have to go to their security settings on Twitch and turn off the option which says ‘Training for Generative AI’.

In an FAQ on Twitch’s support page, it explains: “Generative AI content models are AI tools that can help create or synthesize content outputs like text or images when given instructions or prompts because they are also trained on content. When you allow training, that means that your content may be used for future Gen AI model improvements.

“An example of what happens when you allow your content to be used for training a GenAI content model is that your audio might help refine models that create speech to text, which would help improve captions at Twitch but would also help improve captions across Amazon.”

When opting out, Twitch says “your streams, VODs, clips, stream chats, and pictures and text on your channel will not be used in future training of a model developed by Amazon whose purpose is to generate or synthesize text, audio, images, or video.”

It doesn’t entirely opt the user out of all AI and machine-learning uses at Twitch. Even if users opt out, the site will still use AutoMod, which ” helps keep our community safe, but does not retain your data and use it to produce content”. It will also still use AI to auto-generate captions for users’ content, but “does not retain your stream or your clips to train a model that can generate new content”.

In a stark explanation during a Patch Notes stream on the official Twitch channel later that day, Twitch chief product officer Mike Minton stated that the reason users are opted into generative AI training by default is because they wouldn’t agree to it if given the choice.

“Why is it not opt in? That’s what everybody is in here, spamming in chat, I get it, ‘let me opt in versus making me opt out’,” Minton said during the stream. “Well, there’s an honest answer, and I think most of you probably can appreciate this – if it was opt in, nobody would opt in.

“That’s honestly the answer. So it’s going to be on by default. Almost every content service in the world is on by default, I think the thing that we’re doing here that is unique and different, is respecting your wishes to opt out of model training.”

It should be noted that Twitch’s announcement on Wednesday wasn’t that it was now using users’ content to train generative AI models, but that it was now giving them the option to opt out of it.

During a Creator Economy Summit held by The Information in 2024, Minton was asked whether Amazon was using Twitch to train AI models, and he replied that it was, though “in a prototyping, not in any kind of production scale, capacity”.

“Yeah, for sure,” he said at the time. “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.”