Udemy, an e-learning platform with more than 250,000 online classes, recently announced that it would train generative AI on the classes that its users contribute to the site. Not only were class teachers automatically opted in to having their classes used as training, Udemy said teachers would have only a three-week “window” to opt-out of training. That window has now passed.
“We want to officially announce that the opt-out period for our Generative AI Program (GenAI Program) begins today, August 21st, and goes through September 12th. The choice to participate in the GenAI program is yours. If you want to participate, no action is needed!,” Udemy said in a post on its community forums August 21. In an “Instructor Generative AI Policy” document, it says it plans to offer “Annual Periods designated by us” during which instructors can opt-out of having their classes trained on, and said that when people opt-out of training, it will remove the instructors’ classes from its dataset “by the end of the calendar year.” It has also told instructors that “By opting out, you’ll lose access to all AI features and benefits, which may affect your course visibility and potential earnings.” With the first opt-out window having passed, instructors are now seeing a grayed-out option in their settings if they didn’t know about the window or would like to opt-out now.
Regardless of what it’s for, companies should not be able to opt people into whatever the fuck they want and make it as difficult as possible to opt out. Like the whole thing with forced arbitration going on right now where the only way to opt out is to send physical mail to an address within a certain amount of days. They make it as difficult as possible so people are less inclined to opt out.
Don’t forget to also not be allowed to threaten their income if they don’t ‘opt in’