Recently, Scratch updated their terms of service. In it, they have added a clause which makes it so every Scratch user agrees to let the Scratch foundation use user-generated content on the site as training data for AI models. Worse, there is no way to opt out. I am disgusted and disappointed in the Scratch Team for putting this in the TOS and hoping nobody would notice. AI has no place on a creative platform, ESPECIALLY one marketed to children ages 8 and up. Scratch is all about the creating and learning experience, and implementation of AI tools goes against that philosophy entirely. I purchased the Scratch Membership last month because despite me and the ST having some disagreements in the past, I still deeply respected this platform for setting my life trajectory in the direction of game development. This is no longer the case, and I am currently waiting on a response to my ticket to cancel my membership (THERE'S NO CANCEL BUTTON I COULD FIND). Now, the Scratch Team put out a statement following the backlash about how they will not use any personal information in the training for their AI tools, and that no AI models as of current are being trained on user content. However, those are not the concern. The concern is that at ANY TIME, the Scratch Team would have the ability to scrape the website to train an AI model, and none of us would be able to do anything about it, because again, THERE IS NO WAY TO OPT OUT. Not to mention, using Scratch projects to train AI may not even be legal, as a large amount of Scratch projects contain copyrighted material used without permission. So I'm conflicted. Do I unshare and fully delete my 10+ year history on this site? Or do I leave it up, risking that it may be used to train CatGPT? I don't know anymore. You know, now I don't feel so bad about the Six Hours games being taken down, they're safe now from all this. Maybe I'll lean more into the horror in 3 to really stick it to the man. If you take away anything from all this, it should be this: Don't go quietly. Complain. Make a fuss. Make it KNOWN that we creatives REFUSE to be used. They can't ignore ALL of us. And to the Scratch Team: Do better.
