Striking Video Game Performers Not Ready to Say Game Over

Here are the morning’s top stories for Tuesday, April 15th:

• In 2023, the entertainment world in the US went on strike over production studios’ embrace of artificial intelligence, and its potential to replace humans in the every role from actors to directors. While TV and movie studios eventually came to terms with striking workers in Hollywood, a year later, performers in the videogame industry represented by SAG-AFTRA went on strike over a number of reasons, including better working conditions and how the use of AI in game production would impact their careers.
• In the face of mounting lawsuits over a controversial immigration raid back in Kern County that happened at the beginning of the year, the Department of Homeland Security says it will retrain all of its 900 agents at the California-Mexico border about respecting the 4th Amendment when conduction an operation.

Does AI Mean Game Over for Workers in the Gaming Industry?

Videogame performers have been at loggerheads with major gaming studios about artificial intelligence and how it is being used in game production.  Most of these workers have built careers as voice actors and motion capture performers, bringing game characters to life. Their jobs are now precarious, with gaming companies embracing AI to replace humans as a cost-cutting measure.

Game performers represented by SAG-AFTRA have been on strike since last summer over fears that AI would mean less work for humans–just on the heels of the Hollywood strikes that ground TV and film production to a halt in 2023. However, movie and TV studios have come to terms with actors, writers, producers and directors to some degree, while in videogaming,  striking performers allege that big gaming companies are not making true attempts to secure any kind of deal that would protect workers from being replaced with AI en masse.

And the discontent in gaming only seems to be growing. On April 5th, the union representing videogame developers at Microsoft-owned game company, ZeniMax Media, voted to go on strike over better wages, job security and workplace benefits.

Lawsuits Spur DHS to Train Border Patrol on 4th Amendment

On January 7th, the head of Customs and Border Protection at El Centro near San Diego sent 60 agents more than 300 miles north of California’s border with Mexico into Bakersfield. Over the following three days, the agents targeted areas frequented by agriculture workers and conducted immigration sweeps. Immigration advocates allege that operation, dubbed “Return to Sender,” was based almost solely on racial profiling and was not based on evidence–which is a violation of the 4th Amendment.

While CBP maintains that the operation targeted those with criminal backgrounds, there are no arrest records for 77 of the 78 people that Border Patrol claims to have apprehended. Both the CBP and DHS are now facing lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups that both federal agencies violated the 4th Amendment and other civil rights in the operation.

In response, DHS says it plans to retrain all border agents based at El Centro about how to follow the 4th Amendment when conducting immigration operations in the future.