Think twice the next time you post something potentially rude or harmful in Twitch chat. The streaming site is beginning to use AI to detect โoffensive or disrespectfulโ language.
Twitchโs support account on X (formerly Twitter)ย revealedย today that โover the next few weeksโ it will be experimenting with a new feature that will attempt to detect potentially negative messages to filter out the bad vibesโand potentially help prevent you from getting banned.
โWeโre rolling out an experimental prompt powered by machine learning that encourages users to pause before sending chat messages that are potentially harmful,โ Twitch said. โOur goal with this experiment is to help decrease harassment and facilitate more positive interactions on Twitch.โ
The vague example given by Twitch shows a message prompt that pops up when you attempt to send the message in question, asking โare you sure you want to send this?โ It warns that โyour message may contain words that could be considered offensive or disrespectful,โ and gives the user the opportunity to back out of the message or โsend anyway.โ
Odds are that if someone is trying to be an ass in a Twitch chat, they will just bypass the message and say what they wanted to say. But the interesting part will be to see how this โmachine learningโ detects the language and how off-base or correct it is in practice after a few weeks of this trial experiment.
The example message of โyou are a buttheadโ will probably be the first thing I type out the next time I watch a stream to see if the machine learning is indeed learning. Now all I have to do is find someone who is streaming and is a butthead. Shouldnโt be too difficult!
Twitch says to โstay tuned for more updates in this area soon,โ but this is a general good reminder to keep in mind that everything you type on Twitch is logged and savedโeven whispers, as Dr Disrespect previously found out.
