Kakuma refugees power AI gig work for RWS 'rewards,' not wages

In Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp, people doing data work for Western AI firms often finish assignments without knowing whether they will be paid. A Guardian investigation describes work on AOP Connect, a platform owned by British software firm RWS, where contributors research tasks such as Christian hymns using ChatGPT and compete for discretionary "rewards" of up to $500 from a shared pool advertised at $9,000, rather than guaranteed wages.

The ladder they are climbing is also getting shorter. The International Trade Centre estimates that transcription, data-entry, translation and web-research jobs have declined by about 50% since 2022. Scale AI's subsidiary Remotasks shut its Kenya operations in 2024; workers there typically earned 500 to 1,000 Kenyan shillings a day, roughly $3 to $6. One 3D-modeling project offered 15,000 shillings, around $116, split among five workers.

"AI is taking some of these jobs," says Bahana Hydrogene, the Congolese refugee who built the Solidarity Initiative for Refugees' digital skills program in 2016. "Someone else will do it for less." The opaque pay haunts him: "It's one of the things that keeps me awake at night. They can't get transparent answers from these companies." SIR has trained more than 2,000 refugees and connected over half to remote work.

For Kakuma's roughly 300,000 residents, alternatives are thin, since refugees cannot legally work in Kenya. Joan Kinyua, founding president of the Data Labelers Association, puts the pressure plainly: "You can't afford to stay away from your computer." Pamela Coke-Hamilton, executive director of the International Trade Centre, calls it a "tipping point," warning the sector needs "guardrails to prevent mass exploitation."