{"id":134457,"date":"2025-12-07T10:13:40","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T10:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/?p=134457"},"modified":"2025-12-07T10:17:36","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T10:17:36","slug":"the-hidden-kenyan-workers-training-chinas-ai-models","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/the-hidden-kenyan-workers-training-chinas-ai-models\/","title":{"rendered":"The hidden Kenyan workers training China\u2019s AI models"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"post-header post-header--conveyor\">\n<div class=\"post-header__text\">\n<header class=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"post-subheader has-summary\">\n<div class=\"post-subheader__summary\" role=\"region\" aria-label=\"summary\">\n<div class=\"text__text__1FZLe text__dark-grey__3Ml43 text__regular__2N1Xr text__small__1kGq2 body__full_width__ekUdw body__small_body__2vQyf article-body__paragraph__2-BtD\" data-testid=\"paragraph-0\">\n<div class=\"post-subheader has-summary\">\n<div class=\"post-subheader__summary\" role=\"region\" aria-label=\"summary\">\n<div class=\"post-subheader has-summary\">\n<div class=\"post-subheader__summary\" role=\"region\" aria-label=\"summary\">\n<div class=\"post-subheader has-summary\">\n<div class=\"post-subheader has-summary\">\n<div class=\"post-subheader__summary\" role=\"region\" aria-label=\"summary\">\n<div class=\"post-subheader has-summary\">\n<div class=\"post-subheader__summary\" role=\"region\" aria-label=\"summary\">\n<ul>\n<li>Chinese AI companies are quietly tapping into Kenya\u2019s young workforce, hiring students and recent graduates to label thousands of videos a day.<\/li>\n<li>The work is done through opaque networks of middlemen and WhatsApp groups that operate like digital factory floors.<\/li>\n<li>Kenya\u2019s weak labor protections and soaring youth unemployment have made it a hot spot for cheap AI labor, prompting officials and unions to warn of a new form of digital colonialism as the government rushes to draft regulations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"post-container\">\n<div class=\"post-content\">\n<p>It\u2019s 3 a.m. in Nairobi, and Ken\u2019s laptop and phone glow in the dark. On one screen, waves crash against a beach in a video, and on the other, a woman stretches into a yoga pose. He has watched each clip several times, trying to decide whether or not it\u2019s in slow motion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"su-button-center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/restofworld.org\/2025\/kenya-china-ai-workers\/\" class=\"su-button su-button-style-default\" style=\"color:#FFFFFF;background-color:#68cf8a;border-color:#54a66f;border-radius:10px\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"color:#FFFFFF;padding:8px 26px;font-size:20px;line-height:30px;border-color:#96deae;border-radius:10px;text-shadow:none\"><i class=\"sui sui-sign-out\" style=\"font-size:20px;color:#FFFFFF\"><\/i>  <small style=\"padding-bottom:8px;color:#FFFFFF\">Click here for full article at Rest of World<\/small><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chinese AI companies are quietly tapping into Kenya\u2019s young workforce, hiring students and recent graduates to label thousands of videos a day. The work is done through opaque networks of &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1549,"featured_media":134463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[49,51,794,5,1738],"tags":[428,241,365,230,324],"class_list":["post-134457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa","category-asia","category-digital","category-news","category-work","tag-ai","tag-china","tag-data","tag-informal-economy","tag-kenya"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1549"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}