Banner by @ThePlayer9 (https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/862377/?page=50#985). So, this one is going to be a bit different than what I usually do, but I would like to talk about something that’s been going on lately. Something that’s been bothering me and a lot of the Scratch community. You likely already know about the Scratch and AI situation that has turned into something of a scandal, on Scratch’s own discussion forums and on a lot of other social media sites as well. You probably already know about how almost every major company has been basically glazing on the use of AI throughout their websites and services ever since ChatGPT became popular in late 2022. Now Scratch is going to become one of those companies. On January 22 (which coincidentally happened to be my five-year anniversary for having a Scratch account), MIT updated their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and this one particular section that a lot of people noticed basically says that they have the right to train AI models on your projects. Like, I’m not even joking, I literally saw the new Terms of Service. And a vast majority of the community is understandably pissed, myself included. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think all AI is bad. I actually like some AI, like ChatGPT (so sorry! btw I did NOT use ChatGPT to write this for me). But some other kinds of generative AI just… don’t appeal to me. Scratch has been experimenting with those kinds of AI features since 2024 now, and I was never a big fan of the features anyway. Not even the non-generative ones, like the face sensing extension, which was admittedly very exciting when they finally released it publicly after like, four and a half years, I guess. But the new ToS update is a new matter altogether. Using our projects for AI training?? Projects that can take months to plan, code, draw for, and publish? Just so that when Scratch rolls out their new generative AI features, kids can copy it in a few minutes and the end result would be way worse than the original? That feels extremely disrespectful to the creators who actually put the time in. This is an all-time low for Scratch. Not to mention, this would completely go against the main purpose of the website, which is empowering creativity. What kind of “creativity” comes from using AI to make cheap knockoffs in as little as five minutes? Even worse, people might take really amazing projects and inject whatever random trend is popping off at the moment (like the Italian brainrot thing). It’d get old fast, and it would absolutely cheapen the originals. I mean, no offense to Gen Alpha, obviously, but we all know how fast trends can turn from funny to straight-up obnoxious. On the flip side, not EVERYONE is that upset by the AI update. I’ve actually asked a couple of bigger Scratchers what they thought of the situation. Some say that it could go either way. The common counterargument is that if you don’t want your projects stolen by AI, just don’t publish projects. It’s that simple! Problem solved, right? But also, just no. Because if everyone just stopped publishing projects altogether out of fear of the AI training, then Scratch would start to fall apart much, much earlier than everyone thinks it will come. And it will come. The downfall on Scratch was already marked by when they started to roll out paid memberships. And this new AI feature just makes it inevitable. And then there are the people that go, “BuT AlL ThEy DiD wAs SaY tHeY wOuLd uSe iT to TrAiN Ai MoDeLs, NoT gEnErAtIvE Ai.” Ok sure, maybe some people are overreacting a bit about it all. But while the use of AI in Scratch’s context isn’t necessarily generative (at least not for now), it’s still training AI, which is just as worse as generative AI because it ultimately feeds into such AI and further enables corporations to keep running with it as far as they can go. And such corporations have NOT hesitated to show just how far they will go with this AI. Like, NO! I don’t want to use your super-stupid AI! I don’t want to take part in the damage that the AI overuse is doing to the environment. (I already did quite enough after creating my first OpenAI account in the first place.) And just when I thought that my favorite website, Scratch, was at least safe from hopping into the AI bandwagon, well, now it’s not safe anymore. We lost the game. The dead internet theory is looking very real right now. (Nah, I’m joking. Maybe.) So anyway, that’s my opinion on the entire Scratch AI situation. I literally could not come up with an ending for this rant and I’m not gonna run to ChatGPT to make one for me, so yeah that’s the end of this rant. I’ll see you guys next time, and sorry I haven’t been active as much. I will also be releasing a video on my YouTube channel about my thoughts on this entire thing soon as well. My YouTube is for those that want to subscribe.
