Highly educated Kenyans who made a living by writing college students' essays instead have found themselves losing work due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

According to The New York Times (NYT) on the 5th (local time), it was estimated that up to 40,000 people once engaged in the essay-ghostwriting business in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, where English is one of the official languages.

Teresios Bundi was a figure who generated high income by ghostwriting over 2,500 essays for 12 years. He moved to the capital city of Nairobi in 2011 to attend university and stepped into the online ghostwriting side job.

After completing his public health degree in 2015, he fully jumped into the ghostwriting business, receiving 40 to 70 dollars per essay, which was at least five times more money than what he could expect in the public health field.

Although he had concerns about helping students cheat, he ultimately considered the choice to be up to the students and thought of himself as a "tutor."

However, after OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, the amount of work began to drop sharply, ghostwriting unit prices hit rock bottom, and Kenya's essay-ghostwriting industry virtually vanished in an instant.

"I never imagined AI could do this kind of work," Bundi told the NYT.

Richard Esilaba, who once grew his business to the point of hiring 100 ghostwriters, has closed down his ghostwriting business and is currently doing photo-editing work.

Esilaba told the NYT that while he is trying out work utilizing AI, he is not generating as much income as his ghostwriting business did.

Alex Munyua also worked in the essay-ghostwriting industry before switching to data labeling and social media content moderation tasks, but now even those jobs are disappearing, he told the NYT.

"After jobs disappeared, some returned to their hometowns, while others tried other fields but are frustrated because they cannot find full-time jobs," Munyua said.

In Kenya, more than 100,000 college graduates are produced every year, but full-time jobs are known to be severely lacking.

About 80 percent of all jobs are informal jobs such as delivery work, construction, and street vending, and the youth unemployment rate is estimated to exceed 25 percent.

Because of this, the NYT pointed out that the Kenyan government has also practically condoned online platform labor, including essay ghostwriting.

However, as AI rapidly develops, the ground for these online freelancers is gradually shrinking.

In a test jointly conducted by Scale AI and the Center for AI Safety, the task completion rate of AI models for online freelance work rose from 2.5 percent in October of last year to 16 percent in July of this year.

"AI is now coming for bankers, accountants, engineers, and even architects," Bundi said. "(The job crisis) is something that will eventually come for everyone."

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)