‘Someone else will do it for less’: Refugees in Kenya are powering tech for dwindling pay

Refugee gig workers for tech companies don’t know how much they’ll be paid – if AI hasn’t already taken their jobs

In a portable building in Kakuma, a refugee camp near Kenya’s northern border with South Sudan, Grace used ChatGPT to research translations of Christian hymns in languages she doesn’t speak. She didn’t know the client, the purpose of her work or whether she would be paid, but as a refugee unable to legally work in Kenya, she needed any opportunity she could get.

Grace, who requested anonymity due to a nondisclosure agreement, prompted ChatGPT to translate the hymn’s English text into the assigned east Asian language. She then used the translation to search for existing versions and find information about its translator, author and Christian denomination. She fed those details to AOP Connect, a crowdsourced research platform owned by British AI enterprise software company RWS.