Twitch and Amazon face legal action over using livestreams to train AI
The lawsuit alleges Twitch used streamers' videos to train AI without their permission or proper compensation.
Amazon and its subsidiary Twitch are confronting legal action, accused of leveraging user livestreams to train artificial intelligence.
The class-action lawsuit, filed on behalf of millions of Twitch streamers, alleges that Amazon utilized their video content for AI training without obtaining consent or providing adequate compensation. This legal challenge follows user outcry in August when the company announced its intention to use data for AI, offering an opt-out option.
Connecticut-based streamer Warren Pandiscia initiated the lawsuit, asserting that Twitch violated its contractual agreement with users by employing their content as AI training data for Amazon's models without permission. The suit contends that streamers' work should not be commercially exploited for AI development without their consent or remuneration.
The legal action seeks damages for streamers whose content was purportedly used for AI training and requests a court order to prevent Amazon from continuing the alleged practice. Neither Twitch nor Amazon has issued a statement regarding the lawsuit.
The timeline for when Amazon began collecting Twitch user data for AI model training remains unclear. Mike Minton, Twitch's chief product officer, previously stated he was unaware if user data had been scraped for training prior to the introduction of the opt-out feature. He expressed uncertainty regarding Amazon's past actions concerning "model training and what they've used and not used."
Twitch's own FAQs on AI training indicate that user audio might be employed to "refine models that create speech to text," aiming to enhance automatic subtitles on both Twitch streams and Amazon videos.
Users wishing to disable this feature can do so by navigating to the "Settings" tab in their Streamer Dashboard, selecting "Security and Privacy," and then toggling off "training for Generative AI" near the bottom of the options. However, this opt-out only applies to individual streams, meaning creators' content could still be used for AI training if they appear in a stream where the feature remains enabled.
Amazon, which acquired Twitch for nearly $1 billion (£740 million) in 2014, has prioritized AI development as it competes with other technology giants like Google and Meta.