In the quiet architecture of the global gig economy, thousands of Kenyan writers built dignified livelihoods by crafting essays for Western students — work that required intelligence, discipline, and fluency, and that paid better than most local alternatives. Then artificial intelligence arrived, and within months, the market for human-written academic content collapsed, leaving those workers without income, severance, or a clear path forward. Their story is not merely about one disrupted sector in one country; it is an early signal of what happens when automation reaches knowledge work that w
AI Decimates Kenya's Essay-Writing Gig Economy
Thousands of Kenyans have lost income from essay-writing work that served as a primary livelihood.