Afrika Techno Policy

Artificial intelligence is transforming society, particularly work environments, with the rise of click work complicating labour rights. AI companies contract third-party firms in Kenya to train datasets, aiming to reduce bias and toxicity in AI models, under the guise of creating ethical AI . Despite AI systems being computer-based, they fundamentally rely on human labour for training datasets and for algorithm development. These workers could be content moderators or data labellers. A TIME investigation revealed concerns of working conditions for AI labourers , including low wages, toxic environments causing mental health issues, insufficient compensation, and stressful working conditions. Kenya's status as a regional ICT hub has made it a centre for this work, including dirty work, with several workers recently sharing their challenges in interviews with 60 Minutes Australia. Platform cooperatives' response: Opportunities and gaps  In Kenya, individuals and organizations ha...

The statistics are stark and sobering. According to Fortune, approximately half of all internet traffic now comes from non-human sources . Imperva’s 2024 Bad Bot Report identifies nearly 50% of web activity as originating from bots; 20% of which are explicitly malicious. This is not a technical inconvenience or a cybersecurity concern. It represents nothing less than the undermining of the foundational economic model that has sustained the internet as we know it for the past three decades. We are witnessing the collapse of the ‘attention economy’, the system whereby human attention becomes the primary commodity being harvested, packaged, and sold to advertisers.  The entire edifice of the contemporary internet rests on a simple premise: that clicks, views, and engagement metrics represent genuine human interest and, by extension, purchasing intent. When bot networks can simulate this engagement at scale, they do not create noise in the data. Rather they destabilize the value pro...