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Nearly 100 Kenyan tech workers have signed an open letter to U.S. president Joe Biden and Katherine Tai, America’s trade representative with the company, saying that the artificial intelligence work they do for companies like OpenAI, Facebook, and ScaleAI amounts to “modern day slavery.”
The workers are asking for their working conditions to be improved during negotiations for a U.S.-Kenya trade agreement.
“US Big Tech companies are systemically abusing and exploiting African workers,” the letter says. “In Kenya, these US companies are undermining the local labor laws, the country’s justice system and violating international labor standards. Our working conditions amount to modern day slavery. Any trade-related discussions between the US and Kenya must take into account these abuses and ensure that the rights of all workers are protected.”
Among their demands are greater respect for unions and labor laws in Kenya and greater accountability in U.S. courts for companies operating in Kenya.
Last year, the Guardian detailed how Kenyan workers are often paid low wages (less than $5 an hour) to train AI models not to spit out toxic results. The work requires workers to view and read graphic content in order identify it as such. “It has destroyed me completely,” one worker told the newspaper.