Gamers on major streaming platform outraged at Amazon

Video gamers active on the popular streaming platform Twitch have expressed their outrage with a new regulation that saw their content to be used to train Amazon's AI models without their knowledge.

At the centre of the frustration is a setting installed by Amazon, which owns the widely popular platform, which is turned on by default that allows the US tech giant to take data generated by creators and audiences to train AI, as reported by tech news outlets.

While Twitch representatives ensured users that they can opt out of this feature in a recent statement, the announcement sparked a backlash with some users questioning why it was allowed in the first place.

Twitch's chief product officer Mike Minton even acknowledged the reason behind the outrage as valid, saying that while the company was "respecting" users by letting them opt out, when asked why data was collected by default, he admitted: "If it's opt-in, nobody would opt-in. That's the honest answer."

Users who remain opted in could have any of their channel content used for training Amazon's AI model, Minton said during a livestream, while ensuring that the data collected will not be re-sold to third parties.

According to the streaming platform's representatives, a user's audio might be used to "refine models that create speech to text," which would help improve automatic subtitles on Twitch streams as well as Amazon videos.

However, criticism also stems from some users questioning what the implications could be for game developers, given the feature would also seemingly train Amazon's AI models on the countless video games being played by streamers.

During the live stream to respond to this criticism, other Twitch executives also joined in to provide more insight into the feature. As the chatbox for the live translation flooded with hundreds of angry comments, Minton admitted that he did not know if users' data had already been scraped for training, adding that he was unsure what Amazon "has done in terms of model training and what they've used and not used."

The tech giant bought Twitch for nearly $1 billion back in 2014. It runs a host of AI services and has heavily invested in the development of those models as it seeks to compete with other industry leaders such as Google and Meta, which have also embraced the technology.

By Nazrin Sadigova