Oh my god... Thanks for the callout.

I'm extremely baffled this happened, like what were they thinking??? Sneaking in GenAI as a Christmas Cat emote? this is just disrespectful! couldn't they just hire an artist to make an emote, at least for this holiday? Just... shame on them. 🤮

Absolutely no AI art, please.

In all the years (almost nine) I’ve been on Twitch, I’ve seen artists struggle to find their place, but persevere all the same. There are hundreds of artists (and specifically dedicated emote artists) on this platform that Twitch could turn to create original, custom emotes. This has been the standard for years now.
The use of generative AI is not only a slap in the face to creators and artists of all types, it’s theft. Generative AI, by design, cannot create original work. It uses artwork and photos it has no right or legal permission to use to cobble together something less than the sum of its stolen parts, and we can tell. This is beyond disappointing.

Optically, the practice of using Generative AI is abhorrent, and discourages all those who have worked so hard to provide quality emotes in the past from ever wanting to do so again.

This is a direct threat to the livelihoods of your users.

Do better.

Considering Twitch's iffy stance on AI, I'm not surprised they made that emote. Nonetheless, I could photoshop that emote quicker than the AI gen did

We don't want or need AI garbage on the platform.

Stop using AI so create emotes. Support the artists who use your platform and commission them. Ai is bad for your brand and a slap in the face to artists everywhere, especially the ones on your platform.

If I can get artists who'll make me an emote for $5-10, no way Amazon can't afford them after 3 mid-rolls/hour on my channel AFTER I manually run ads to disable them!

Twitch you have an abundance of talented artists on your platform who I'm sure would be happy to create a global emote that's not AI garbage

The 'Sensitive Social Issues' change felt like the beginning of the end. This update confirms it.

This is an insult to all the artists you use to gain traction on your platform, just to turn around and use AI. If it was an accident, then an immediate fix should be easy. If this was on purpose, think about the way Twitch emote culture has an entire industry and backbone. Think about how Twitch emotes bring people to Twitch out of curiosity. Think about the future of the internet where nothing is truly real and is all just AI generated slop. This is not what your platform should be. Cultivate the arts. Cultivate painting, drawing, photography, digital design. Twitch is the hailed platform over youtube BECAUSE of emote culture and customizability in channels. You could have held a contest where plenty of people would have submitted photos of their cats. I would have lovingly sent you a photo for free to use for this emote. I am sure many would jump for the opportunity. You have so many amazing creators that you bypassed to make something easy and free. Ban AI global emotes.

There are so many amazing artists in twitch that even thinking about using AI is mind boggling.

There is no shortage of talented emote artists on your own platform. It is inexcusable to use AI garbage.

Why would you use genAI in the face of tons of artists, genuinely blind move and yet still only a glint in the ever-rolling look at just how disconnected Twitch has become from its userbase.

Artist are a massive part of twitch and this is actively stealing from them. Please remove ai generated images from twitch and don't use them going forward

Please twitch. We do not want GenAI in art. Many artists would love to have their art featured. GenAI in art is still unethical

There are artists in your community who would KILL for an opportunity to work with you, Twitch. Literally countless artists would accept even a tiny payment to make a global emote. Even if greed is your motivation, this is especially insulting to the community that built your company for you.

This is insulting to artists and such a bad look for a company, ESPECIALLY one that depends on content creators. If you're not going to support the people on your platform, what are you even doing? Your platform is based on art, content creation, and genuine human interaction. To snub real artists and use something that's AI generated is such a thoughtless move. As a platform that should inherently support the arts, and has enough money for conventions every year, surely you can afford to pay a real artist to make an emote.

It costs literally nothing to get a single emote like this created/edited, choosing not to pay an artist for even that just sends a very negative PR message. Some artists might even do it for free just for the opportunity to get their name on their work out on such a huge platform, so again just gives Twitch completely unnecessary bad PR for no savings.

Please just stay away from genAI, it's NOT the future.

Do you have any idea how many artists stream on your platform, and what an opportunity it would be for a real person to be able to have their art seen by the entire website? And instead you give us this garbage??

This is just insulting to all the artist on twitch and just look incredibly lazy. As an emote artist this is so disrespectful and will just set a precedent to Twitch streamers that this is something that is okay. So disappointing….commission real artists. You guys have the funds.