Editorial Note: Opinions are the writer’s own and not those of AfroTech. Artificial intelligence (AI) has quickly and deeply infiltrated our daily lives — beyond simply getting the weather from smart speakers to now taking orders at local drive-thru restaurants. AI has become a part of our day-to-day routines at a speed many of us could not have predicted. Now that the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) strike is well underway, along with several concerning headlines emerging about how generative AI adoption has outpaced our ethics around it, there should also be concern about how AI will continue to disrupt our media landscape — and representation in particular. Indeed, enacting parameters around the use of AI is part of the WGA strike demands, including regulating the use of AI technology to prevent AI from being used as source material, or to write/ rewrite literary material, among other tasks the technology could complete instead of actual writers. As Misa Makwakwa Masokameng...

Black TikTokers are fed up with not getting the credit they deserve for starting social media’s most popular dance trends. Now they’re going on an online strike to protest against white creators who steal their work. Most recently, there have been several reports that state Black creators on the video sharing platform have staged a strike refusing to make a new dance to Megan Thee Stallion’s newest TikTok-made song, “Thot S**t.” Reason being, Black TikTokers don’t want to see white creators stealing yet another dance trend from them. This past weekend, TikTok creator Erick Louis (@theericklouis) posted a video online saying that he made up a new dance to Megan’s song but before he could reveal it, text on the video said, “Sike. This app would be nothing without [Black] people.” @theericklouis If y’all do the dance pls tag me ? it’s my first dance on Tik tok and I don’t need nobody stealing/not crediting ♬ Thot Shit – Megan Thee Stallion According to Insider, other Black creators...

In Minnesota, Amazon workers at a Shakopee facility are planning to strike on the first day of Prime Day. During Amazon’s annual shopping holiday, workers will stop working for six hours. Although Amazon has faced pushback from its own workers before, this will be the first time that workers in the United States have planned a protest during the company’s major sale event. For Amazon workers in Shakopee, one of the major issues is that the company regularly promotes faster delivery times — but they’re the ones who often suffer for it. One of the Shakopee employees organizing the strike, William Stolz, told Bloomberg : “Amazon is going to be telling one story about itself, which is they can ship a Kindle to your house in one day, isn’t that wonderful. We want to take the opportunity to talk about what it takes to make that work happen and put pressure on Amazon to protect us and provide safe, reliable jobs.” Engineers from Seattle are planning to fly in to support warehouse workers...