Twitch revealed this Thursday (13) that it has started using broadcast content to train Amazon's generative AI models, with all users enabled by default. The company posted on X a setting, disclosed by its support center, that allows disabling the training.
During a live stream, Twitch's product director, Mike Minton, justified the decision: “If it were opt-in, nobody would opt in,” he said. The option is in the “Security and Privacy” tab, at the end of settings, under the name “Training for Generative AI.”
Reaction from streamers and studios
A thread on Twitch User Voice, opened in May, asking that AI features be optional and off by default, has gathered nearly 14,000 votes and 228 pages of comments. Mike Futter, co-founder of consultancy F-Squared and director of Causeway Studios, told PC Gamer the measure poses a danger to studios that avoid AI. “This creates a real threat to our creative work,” he said.
Limits of opting out
In an FAQ, Twitch said content may be used to improve models such as speech-to-text, benefiting captions on the platform itself and on Amazon services. The company also clarified that disabling generative training does not disable other AI uses, such as automatic captions, which are not retained for generating new content.
