In the span of two years, a quiet but sustaining economy built by Kenyan freelancers — writing college essays for international students from living rooms in Nairobi, Kisumu, and Mombasa — was rendered obsolete by artificial intelligence. What had been a reliable rung on the ladder toward middle-class stability vanished not through gradual decline but through sudden market inversion, as AI tools replicated human prose for a fraction of the cost. The collapse is both a human story of lost livelihoods and a philosophical warning: when the work that was meant to be the future disappears first, wh
AI Decimates Kenya's College Essay Writing Industry
Thousands of Kenyan freelancers lost primary income sources as AI writing tools eliminated demand for human essay writing services within two years.