As you already might have seen, people have started to quit, boycott, and leave Scratch because of 1 root reason: Scratch, and Artificial intelligence. They have added a new section in the ToS about AI usage. However, is it really that big of a deal? The main goal of this forum post will be to show how Scratch actually utilizes AI, and to calm down people concerned of their projects being fed to AI. If you know anyone quitting Scratch because of Ai, please show them this post. It would be very helpful.

Clarifying what Scratch says in the TOS

Scratch added this in the ToS (no need to read)

The Service may permit users to Submit Input to the Service in order to generate responses, images, recommended software edits, or other AI-generated output (“Output”). “Output” and “Input” are collectively “AI Content”. Output does not include any Other Users’ Content (as defined below) recommended, displayed, or otherwise made available to you by any search or AI-enabled features of the Service. You are solely responsible for verifying the accuracy and relevance of any Output. You acknowledge that Outputs do not constitute any kind of investment, legal, medical or professional advice and should not be relied upon, as they may be false, incomplete, misleading or not reflective of recent events or information. You further acknowledge that Output may contain content inconsistent with our views. As between you and Scratch, you own all Output. By submitting Input to or via the Service, and by using the Service to generate Output, you grant Scratch a worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully paid right and license (with the right to sublicense through multiple tiers) to store, reproduce, publicly display, publicly perform (including by means of a digital audio transmission), create derivative works of, distribute, and otherwise use and exploit your AI Content, in whole or in part, for the purpose of providing, developing, improving, and extending the Service and for commercial purposes, which may include (but not be limited to) licensing, developing, and improving AI models and allowing third parties to do so for free or for a fee. You must not submit Input that (i) contains personal data or is personally identifiable, or (ii) causes Scratch to violate any law or regulation, or violates any applicable third-party agreements or policies.

Because of how corporate and complicated this sounds, most people took the word AI and said “That's enough,” this entire article explains that:

• Any AI content made from Scratch isn't intended to use others' content
  The AI content made from Scratch is not fully correct at sometimes, and you are the one to see if it is correct
  They are not professional advice that you would get from a person that is smart or educated about your topic
  They are not up to date sometimes
  You own the AI content made from Scratch
  Scratch can use the AI content for the AI model and other AI models.
  You can't make Scratch generate content that contains personal info or breaks the rules.
  

This almost certainly confirms that Scratch is gonna be using AI though. But, AI bad, right? Well, not really.

Scratch, and the big AI word floating around

People have seen Scratch saying they want to lean towards AI, and have started to get upset about Scratch using AI. However, Scratch is not using AI in any malicious way, and they don't intend to. An example of AI usage on Scratch can be seen here: https://medium.com/scratchteam-blog/coming-soon-your-creative-learning-assistant-7a28d184182c
Scratch doesn't want to have the AI fully make code for you, only assist, say it with me here, assist. Not fully create. Scratch has shared more about the CLA publicly, and it's clear they don't want it to be a vibe coding tool.
However, some people aren't upset about the AI, but rather how they train it.

AI feeding off projects?

Lots of people are freaking out about Scratch feeding projects to AI, and how unethical it is, but is it unethical?
Not really. Scratch isn't using your art or sounds to train the AI, just the code

Because of the many challenges with AI image generation, we won’t be including it in Scratch any time soon

The code of a project will also not be used for people to fully create projects with AI, just, again, ASSIST
So please don't freak out about the AI being trained off your projects,or anything, it's fine.

Conclusion

There are many, MANY problems with AI, and there definitely was no reason to add AI into Scratch, but I genuinely feel like people are overreacting a lot. Scratch has boundaries for AI, and it doesn't, and might never, aim to be the next vibe coding tool

PS: This took long…

To me it sounds more like they are saying that User Content that the AI recommends isn't classified as ‘Output’.

gem1001 wrote:

To me it sounds more like they are saying that User Content that the AI recommends isn't classified as ‘Output’.

the whole point of the input and output thing was to simplify the paragraph more

bump

Zuhair12345 wrote:

gem1001 wrote:

To me it sounds more like they are saying that User Content that the AI recommends isn't classified as ‘Output’.

the whole point of the input and output thing was to simplify the paragraph more

What do you mean?

This doesn't appear to be a question.

I suggest, if you have a question about the TOS, that you use the Contact Us link (at the bottom of every page, too) to message the Scratch Team directly rather than make guesses as to what it means.