Kenya’s AI workers have forced labour abuses into the open. Now proposed protections risk legitimizing the same low-paid outsourcing model that left them exposed. Snephin Roy reports.
In July, Kenya drafted rules protecting the workers behind the AI boom. The rules would require the outsourcing firms that serve companies like OpenAI and Meta to offer minimum pay benchmarks, mental-health support and formal contracts to the country’s data annotators and content moderators.
Kenyans doing this work earn $1.46 to $3.74 an hour – barely above the country’s $1 statutory minimum and far below the $21 to $27 an hour paid to US content moderators.
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