In Nairobi, a group of workers faces critical working conditions while training artificial intelligence models for American and Chinese companies. This phenomenon is part of the context of technology globalization, where Kenya, instead of becoming the expected tech HUB, has become a destination for cheap labor due to rising wages in China.
Very harsh conditions
The working conditions for these employees have been described as inhumane, with numerous reports about the need to filter toxic content that causes considerable damage to their mental health. The workers are responsible for cleaning responses from language models, such as those used by ChatGPT, facing traumatic content that they must process under a strict cultural and political framework that adheres to Chinese regulations.
As the cost of labor in China has increased, corporations have shifted their gaze towards Africa, seeking to replicate the precarious working conditions that initially motivated the exit of American capital from the country. However, the new approach not only raises ethical questions but also presents a cultural dilemma: workers in Nairobi must train AI models from a perspective that does not contravene the political sensitivities of the Chinese Communist Party.
This work model has brought with it a series of ethical scandals that have called into question the social responsibility of the companies involved. Despite being part of the Digital Silk Road, which promises to interconnect economies, the reality is that the local economy has not seen the expected benefits, and the dream of a technological future in Kenya continues to be an illusion that contrasts with the harshness of the daily lives of these workers.