How AI wiped out an entire industry in Nairobi

In Kenya, ChatGPT wiped out an entire business model: writing academic papers for foreign students. Thousands of Kenyans wrote essays and term papers for students at universities in the US and UK, in fields like medicine, computer science, and engineering, sometimes using their clients' university logins, the New York Times reports.

At its peak early this decade, at least 40,000 people worked in the industry in Nairobi alone, according to researchers. Teresios Bundi, 34, wrote more than 2,500 papers over twelve years and later charged $40 to $70 per text. After ChatGPT launched in 2022, prices and orders collapsed. Other work in the country also dried up, like transcription, data annotation, and content moderation for Meta.

Kenya's government had deliberately promoted online gig work starting in 2016, and companies like Samasource helped label AI data. About 80 percent of jobs in the country are informal. What's left, according to the NYT, are "humanizers" who rework AI text to slip past plagiarism checks. Oxford professor Mark Graham expects similar upheavals worldwide. Bundi warns, "A.I. is coming for bankers, for accountants, it's coming for engineers, and A.I. will come for architects. It's coming for everybody."

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