ChatGPT Completely Nukes Kenya’s College Essay Writing Gig Economy
The Kenyan essay gig economy once brought in between $240 million to $960 million annually in gross payments. AI slaughtered that cash cow.
Artificial intelligence was supposed to liberate students from academic drudgery, letting them quickly access links and information across a wide array of subjects and make their scholarship smarter and more efficient.
However, as I noted in previous posts, AI has made academic dishonesty more prevalent, triggering a cascade of unintended consequences.
But not all of the consequences are bad.
The arrival of ChatGPT has nuked Kenya’s gig economy built around writing assignments for Western university students.
An incredible article packed with bitter and disgraceful irony. Underscores the fakery of so much of what is called college in the US.
Kenyans Did College Students’ Homework for Years. Then A.I. Arrived. https://t.co/Cspd5sTlmw
— Jeffrey A Tucker (@jeffreytucker) September 7, 2026
This weekend, The New York Times published a story that began with Teresios Bundi’s journey from a Kenyan farming village to Nairobi. The cash-strapped university student found a fiscal lifeline writing essays for overseas students eager to outsource both homework and responsibility. Over 12 years, Bundi reportedly produced more than 2,500 papers (sometimes even logging into students’ own school accounts).
The academic fraud mill was working brilliantly until students discovered AI.
In 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT. At colleges worldwide, students made a simple calculation that has become more pronounced today: Why pay a freelancer in Kenya when ChatGPT could do the job?
Essay work began to thin. Rates fell, and assignments dwindled. Before long, the industry shrank to almost nothing. “I never would have expected A.I. could do this,” Mr. Bundi said.
His fate is shared by others who had found a foothold in the global online gig economy. Kenyans also transcribed meetings through the freelance platforms Upwork and Fiverr. They flagged Facebook posts to help the platform decide what could stay up. One after another, those opportunities have withered.
…Mr. Bundi said he had regrets. When he graduated from college in 2015, he bypassed a public health career to start an online essay-writing business, charging $40 to $70 per paper. Assignments came in through digital platforms, and he divvied up work between himself and students he hired. He rented a house near a university and filled it with desks, fast internet and mattresses. Students worked between classes and slept when too exhausted to write.
Of course, the NYT, being the NYT, has the woke slant to this development that we have come to expect.
The New York Times right now: https://t.co/Li0FUcqoDj pic.twitter.com/MqANjjIQCy
— Amy Curtis (@RantyAmyCurtis) September 7, 2026
According to the NYT article, the remaining essay-generators are now marketing their skills in “humanizing” AI-created work to avoid AI detectors. That pathway, too, is likely to fail.
What makes Nairobi’s essay economy a useful test case is that the clients didn’t run off to cheaper competitors down the road. Demand just vanished overnight because AI started doing the same jobs for free.
As Oxford gig economy researcher Mark Graham points out, automated tools have already carved up huge chunks of these digital workforces, and Kenya is really just the first stop on a much longer tour.
The policy tension bubbling underneath is also a noteworthy detail.
Kenya staked a decade-long national strategy on digital outsourcing at a time when generative software began executing those same tasks for almost nothing. Any government or gig platform still banking on exporting piece-rate digital labour is currently watching a live demonstration of the future. They’re seeing exactly what unfolds when the job itself simply ceases to exist.
Based on my calculations, from the numbers reported in the NYT article and other reports, the Kenyan essay gig economy brought in between $240 million and $960 million annually in gross payments. AI has slaughtered the country’s cash cow.
And it’s not just essayists being impacted by the automated options now available.
Uber is cutting about 3,300 roles, roughly 10% of its workforce, and shutting down in Nigeria and Uganda as it redirects spending towards robotaxis. Its internal memo says everyone affected has been notified except where local process applies, which in the EU means consultation with workers’ representatives and a 30-day wait after notifying the authorities.
Uber is cutting about 3,300 roles, roughly 10% of its staff. It is also shutting down in Nigeria and Uganda, Bloomberg reported.
The stated reason is structure rather than performance. Dara Khosrowshahi’s memo cites more layers, more coordination and fragmented ownership, and the changes cut manager numbers by 20%. Micro-teams of one or two people are halved.
The Kenya essay-mill collapse isn’t just a quirky tech story; it’s a cautionary tale for anyone who still believes central planners can outthink exponentially improving technology.
Kenya bet a decade of national strategy on selling cheap digital labor and academic fraud to the West, and AI completely nuked that business model. This stunning development proves, yet again, that top-down economic blueprints have the shelf life of a carton of milk left in the sun.
The takeaway for students and young workers in Kenya and elsewhere isn’t to panic, but to get serious: Practice real scholarship, gain the skills tied to true craftsmanship, learn to work with your hands and in the trades, and build hard-won human expertise that no algorithm can simply download and undercut overnight.
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
In class blue book exams
Kelley? Or NEDA?
Not much has changed. My roommate (full scholarship athlete) had his girlfriend (a law student) write all of his papers.
this was the early 90s.
African blacks hired to produce better work than US whites… or blacks.
So much to unpack here.
So much shame to go around.
Blacks , the B be Big.
Not on my watch.
On the one hand, eff them. On the other hand, easier and cheaper to be a lazy POS is not good for the future.
Don’t the schools have AI detectors?
Won’t the cheaters be caught?
The good AI detectors are expensive, and colleges would need a lot of licenses. I’m told to “give grace” to students and not believe my lying eyes when a 17-year-old student produces graduate-level work. I’ve added back a midterm exam (in class) and other strategies, but the online classes are tough to modify.
That argues for all essay assignments be done in class, as a quiz assignment.
I don’t disagree, but online classes don’t have class meetings.
Sounds like a “canary in the coal mine” moment. AI is simply outsourcing human activity to zeros and ones faster than humans can. Woo hoo!!! Oh, wait, I’m human too!
Make students of all grades and college levels defend their papers, as is done with a dissertation. The important part of writing a paper is demonstrating you understand the subject matter. If the paper can no longer be trusted as a measure of that understanding, requiring a defense of the paper will. Certainly, students should know and understand what is in their own essays and reports.
I know of one Kenyan who never wrote an assignment including his own.
Have you guessed?
It was the sainted anointed one able to raise the waters and make the sun shine.
Barak (Don’t call me Barry) Hussein Obama (Not Soetoro)
Three time President of thee United State (and counting) and owner of 4 mansions
So, in the past, one would have gone to Kenya for academic papers and sent hostage princes to Nigeria? I wonder if anyone confused the two in the pursuit of their avocation?
the menswear industry did the same thing: it outsourced the production first to China, then to other west Asian countries.
Now they’ll begin to make bespokewear right in the shop with the help of ChatGP, a few bolts of cloth, a cutting and sewing machine.
“You’re right, these pants are two sizes too large.
Would you like to explore the fascinating culture of low-rider pants?”
On the “bright” side, there are still plenty of opportunities for fake princes and romance scams.
Somebody tell Meghan, she’s having no end finding one that works.
*NY Times CLAIMS
Big caveat there.
I’d trust my dog to write a paper before I’d consider hiring anyone from Africa to do it.
Was this really a thing?
LOL!
Makes me wonder how many professors spend precisely zero time actually reading anything their students turn in.
The teaching assistant is using AI for most of the grading, to the surprise of no one.
I find the story as believable as any of Jason Arday’s claims. IOW par for the course for the NYT.