Artificial intelligence is taking work for American students away from Kenyan homework writers
For years, Kenyan Teresios Bundi was paid to write homework assignments for American college students who were cheating. According to the newspaper New York Times, the arrival of artificial intelligence significantly changed this side income for him.
Teresios Bundi moved from a farming village to the capital, Nairobi, in 2011, where he became the first member of his family to attend university. A friend there introduced him to remote work that involved writing homework assignments for American college students, who used this service to avoid doing their own coursework. According to the newspaper New York Times, cited by iRozhlas.cz, this initially provided a decent side income.
According to the same source, the situation changed with the arrival of artificial intelligence, which affected this type of remote work. The sources do not specify when the change occurred or the exact extent of its impact on income for Bundi or others doing similar work. You can find details in the source article.
Why it matters
The case provides a concrete example of how artificial intelligence tools are replacing online remote work in the field of writing academic texts on behalf of students—an informal source of extra income common in Kenya, among other places. It demonstrates the risk to people in countries of the Global South who depended on income from similar online gig work.
Relevant practical impact
What this means
For individuals
The story illustrates how artificial intelligence can quickly reduce demand for remote work done by people, such as commissioned writing, posing a risk to similar freelance side jobs elsewhere in the world.
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