How AI wiped out an entire industry in Nairobi
decoder ·
ChatGPT has devastated the academic essay-writing industry in Nairobi, Kenya, which once employed tens of thousands of people. At its peak, around 40,000 Kenyans wrote term papers and essays for university students in the US and UK, often using clients' university login credentials, according to the New York Times. One writer, Teresios Bundi, produced more than 2,500 papers over twelve years and charged $40-$70 each, but orders and prices collapsed after ChatGPT was released in 2022. The downturn also affected other digital gig work in the country, including transcription, data annotation, and content moderation for Meta. Kenya's government had actively promoted online gig work since 2016, with companies like Samasource helping to label AI data, yet about 80 percent of jobs in the country are informal. The remaining work now involves "humanizers" who rewrite AI-generated text to slip past plagiarism checks. Oxford professor Mark Graham expects similar upheavals worldwide, and Bundi warns that AI will eventually come for bankers, accountants, engineers, architects, and everyone.
decoder