Making a Living from Overseas Clients at $70 an Assignment... The Disappearance of This Profession in Kenya due to AI

Around 40,000 in Nairobi Once Earned Livelihoods as Ghostwriters
Three Years After ChatGPT’s Launch, Fees Collapse and Requests Vanish
Youth Unemployment Rate Over 25%... Most Work Now Informal or Part-Time

Kenyan youth, who once made a living by ghostwriting assignments for overseas university students, have seen their livelihoods disappear due to artificial intelligence (AI).

OpenAI Logo, the operator of generative AI ChatGPT. Reuters Yonhap News

On September 5 (local time), Yonhap News reported, citing The New York Times (NYT), "At one time, an estimated 40,000 people in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya where English is an official language, earned a living by writing assignments on behalf of overseas university students."

Theresios Bundi (34), whom the NYT interviewed, survived in this market for 12 years, writing over 2,500 essays. After moving to Nairobi in 2011 to pursue higher education, he began ghostwriting as a side job and, after earning a degree in public health in 2015, gave up his major to focus solely on ghostwriting. He was paid $40-70 (about 54,000-94,000 won) per assignment. He said, “While I did feel uneasy about helping others earn grades, whether or not it constituted cheating was up to the students who requested the work.” He considered himself more of a “private tutor.”

This landscape changed drastically in 2022, when OpenAI released the generative AI service ChatGPT. Requests for ghostwriting dried up, and rates hit rock bottom. Bundi told the NYT, “I never imagined AI could do this kind of work.”

Richard Eshilache (38), who had scaled up his operation to manage 100 ghostwriters, closed his business and switched to photo editing. Eshilache remarked, “I’m trying to incorporate AI into my work, but it doesn't compare to what I used to earn.”

The central business district of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. Photo by Reuters Yonhap News

Faced with similar circumstances, Alex Munua (30) turned next to “data labeling.” Data labeling involves people manually classifying and verifying data used for AI training, and Nairobi is known as a hub where global information technology (IT) companies concentrate such work. Shiko Kitau, CEO of the Nairobi IT company Kwala, told U.S. media outlet Rest of World last December, “Kenya meets all the leading indicators for outsourcing, including language, literacy rate, power reliability, and a workforce familiar with Western culture,” adding, “The time zone advantage also allows us to serve both the U.S. West Coast and East Asia.”

However, according to the draft of the “AI and Emerging Technologies Policy” released by Kenya’s Ministry of Information, Communications, and the Digital Economy in July, local AI data workers earn only $1.46 to $3.74 per hour (about 1,960–5,030 won). Even these jobs are now disappearing. Munua said, “After losing their jobs, some people returned to their hometowns, while others tried different fields but are discouraged after failing to land full-time positions.”

The reason even these low-paying jobs are desperately sought lies in the structure of Kenya’s labor market. More than 100,000 students graduate from university each year, yet there are far too few full-time jobs to absorb them. Eight out of ten positions are irregular jobs, such as delivery, construction, or street vending. Youth unemployment is estimated to exceed 25%. The NYT pointed out, “This is why the Kenyan government has effectively turned a blind eye to online platform work, including essay ghostwriting.”

The pace at which AI takes over online work previously done by freelancers is accelerating as well. According to a test jointly conducted by ScaleAI and the Center for AI Safety, the share of such work handled by AI models was just 2.5% in October last year but jumped to 16% by July this year. Bundi remarked, “AI is now encroaching on jobs for bankers, accountants, engineers, and architects. Ultimately, this job crisis will reach everyone.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.