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SAG-AFTRA's video game strike has wrapped with a new collective bargaining agreement that explicitly restricts unauthorized AI replication of performer voices and likenesses. It's a meaningful precedent — actors now have contractual language to push back against studios using AI to clone their work without consent or compensation.
From labor rights to corporate deal-making, the Stripe-led consortium that had been eyeing a PayPal acquisition is reportedly walking away. Stripe and buyout firm Advent have both stepped back from what would have been a landmark fintech consolidation. The reasons remain unclear, but the collapse leaves PayPal's strategic future an open question.
And on a stranger note, X says it uncovered a Chinese bot network of around two hundred thousand accounts, with roughly two hundred of them specifically pushing anti-AI data center sentiment. The numbers are oddly small for such a large operation, which raises its own questions about what the investigation actually found — and what it was meant to signal.
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