The AI is hungry for Black flesh first

It’s no coincidence that Black non-humans lead the viral popularity

On the 43 bus, I saw a Black mother, dowdy daughter in tow, swoop her into one arm to exit the back door. Mother wore leopard print stretch shorts, and daughter had on a violet print smock like out of a Keats story. They had been quiet through the ride but loud under my gaze: I could hear all their bright colors and between them the pulse of pure love. I have idealized them, yes, but that’s because they’re not perfect. That makes them my ideal, with mother’s hair wrapped up in a band like mine. She sat in front of another woman, whose house slippers and sock hole went with unkempt hair and a dingy tank top, no bra. I figured the wandering woman could be on her way to Woodhull psych ward, or worse, nowhere at all. The transplants headed for beach day wear the same thing, nose rings and gauges, bandanas, blonde eyebrowed and multi-colored hair. We are archetypal but we are real.

Then, I dread opening the world of my phone. In the feeds, the ones stuffing my mouth and mind way too full—keeping me nauseated, there are videos that look like humans but with one perfect detail too many. There are no chapped lips; there’s no tousled hair; and the eyes, the eyes they’re too fixed and bright. The fine smooth purple-Black and red-Black skins make no mistake though. Set under ring lights, eating chicken, I’ll never forget those two girls from the “mukbang” world. They’re an AI remix of millions of hours spent recording our skin, the jutting lines from full cheeks, the circle-set noses with their subtle bridges. Pretty, young, non-human Black girls keep showing up in my AI education. I’m not trained to believe what’s real or fabricated. Instead, there’s a simulacrum to stand in place of the imperfect and un-programmed. Because the ladies on the bus will never be seen and must remain invisible, their robot avatars suck the minimum required life force to build a proper advertisement.

I’m not a fan. I’m afraid. For young boys and men who will be attracted to women who don’t age, survive in the binary universe, and have a message to peddle. I’m afraid for artists who won’t struggle through errors, like the scurrilous, untamable pencil lines that eventually produce glory. The AI people are Black and they’re eating fried chicken. The AI people are Black and they’re recording antebellum vlogs from the plantation. I want them gone.

Probably the worst video I saw came from the DMs, my lurid, private place for curating internet hell. And shameful laughs. The friend with no filter sent me an AI montage video, one made in the style of 2000s channel-surfing parody. Except every broadcast was an American stereotype of Black life. The opener: a mid-30s AI Black woman doing voice over as if reading from a script: “I used to say ‘where all the good men at?’ Then, I took my Daily Accountability, and realized I’m just a Ain’t-Shit-Ass-Bitch!” The next frame is an AI Black woman doubling down:,”Maybe I am the problem!” Social media was already the way station for uninformed anecdotal beliefs, but now we’ll serve a giant machine producer, who’ll make more images to reinforce them. If you think Black people are crazy, violent, disaffected, broke, this photorealistic AI video will prove they really are. At no charge to you. The Afro-futurists and the Afropessimists might need to sit down for lunch.

Black people like me and you have always been fed into a greedy ass machine. We’re ground into platinum-colored dust. And I say “like me and you” because if you’re not one of the billionaires or the political class, you are effectively Black. You’re feeding the machine exactly what it wants too. The organic remnants of your soul, bore out through pain and strife and holy socks. I will be feeding this uncommon meta-beast too. Join me at your own risk.