Note that I’m not using English grammar as my argument; human language (and English especially) has plenty of exceptions and expressions which make little sense, and if people were to adopt this phrasing en masse, it would naturally become a part of the language, whether it makes sense or not. My argument is that adopting this phrasing is a terrible, user-hostile decision and in my honest opinion we really, really, really ought to avoid it.
Now granted, he did not say that, and I only reached that conclusion by the rest of this conversation, but I think to have meant that and said '... was now also opt-in by default...' isn't unreasonable.
Just sharing since you mentioned you couldn't see how using that term for the opposite would make sense.
"Opting someone else in" is essentially the same category of error as "consenting for someone else". People can only consent for others in specific circumstances and even then only for specific people (e.g. legal guardians), trying to argue "but I consented for them!" in front of a judge usually ain't gonna work.
In other words, you can explicitly choose something by yourself, but if other people (in this case companies, service providers) choose something for you, it’s no longer your explicit decision made by yourself. Hence why I believe we can’t consider that ‘opting in’.
> The property of having to choose *explicitly* to join or permit something; a decision having the *default option being exclusion or avoidance*; used particularly with regard to mailing lists and advertising.
You're just using the term wrong. That's okay, I've used words wrong before, and it just means you've been presented an opportunity for learning a new fact.
But there's no argument to be had except with the dictionary.
No, it's really not. It should read "opted in to training on prompts by default".
"Opt in" means "you have to affirmatively turn this thing on". "Opted in" means "the thing is currently enabled".
Which is why it's probably better to write it as "enabled by default". Much harder to misinterpret.
"Opt in" and "by default" are contradictory phrases. They mean literally the opposite of each other. The only reason it's coherent is that most native speakers will elect to believe "by default" was used correctly because it's the easier to use term.
> there is not a rule of the English language that would make their usage unacceptable
I think you're using emotionally inflammatory language, possibly unintentionally. no one is refusing to accept what they wrote.
That being said, the way they used "opt in" is categorically wrong. It's the opposite of the dictionary definition.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/opt-in
> The property of having to choose explicitly to join or permit something; a decision having the default option being exclusion or avoidance; used particularly with regard to mailing lists and advertising.