Is the Future of AI Licensing Opt-In, or Opt-Out?

Photo Credit: Franck V.

Amazon says it will train AI on Twitch streamers’ content by default, unless they opt out—because “if this was opt-in, nobody would opt in.”

Content creators on Twitch are raging at the Amazon-owned streaming platform, which the company says will train its AI on Twitch streamers’ content by default, unless they opt out. It’s a stance that many major companies seem to be taking to ensure they can freely train their AI models from the platforms they own.

“Why is it not opt-in? That’s what everybody is spamming in chat,” said Twitch’s Chief Product Officer Mike Minton during a livestream responding to user feedback. “I get it. ‘Let me opt in versus making me opt out.’ Well, there’s an honest answer: If this was opt-in, nobody would opt in. That’s honestly the answer.”

It’s no secret that Twitch’s community of streamers largely opposes the use of generative AI, and even the company’s approach to announcing this change implies that Twitch (and Amazon) is braced for the firestorm of backlash. Rather than telling the community that Amazon would begin training on Twitch users’ content, the company framed the change as adding a “setting that lets you opt out.”

In many cases, the move has left streamers wondering whether their content had already been used to train Amazon’s AI models without their knowledge or consent. Even users who asked during the livestream received no clear answer. Questions about those who have opted-out co-streaming with people who are opt-in similarly went unanswered.

“I don’t actually know the answer to that question because I don’t know what Amazon […] has done in terms of model training and what they’ve used and not used,” said Minton.

But Twitch isn’t an outlier in its use of user content for AI training, nor is it unique in its decision to automatically opt its users in. Meta uses public content from its platforms to train its AI models, which means any public-facing Facebook or Instagram accounts have likely already been scraped. Users in the UK can opt out of Meta’s training, but users elsewhere must change their accounts to private—which isn’t an option for creators who monetize their content.

Users wanting to opt out of Twitch’s AI training can navigate to their channel settings (not the creator dashboard) and select the security and privacy tab. Scroll down to the option “Training for Generative AI” and toggle it off.