What AI Jobs in Kenya Involve

A group of Kenyans has shared their experiences working in Artificial Intelligence (AI) jobs, supporting global tech giants like Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google.

Featured in an episode titled Human in the Loop on the U.S. CBS YouTube channel 60 Minutes, three Kenyans discussed the challenges they face amidst limited job opportunities. They are part of a global workforce tasked with ensuring AI systems function efficiently, often referred to as “humans in the loop.”

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Their work involves labeling and sorting vast amounts of online data to train and enhance AI models for major tech companies. The job demands precision, speed, and cost-efficiency.

Naftali Wambalo, one of the Kenyan workers, explained that Kenya has become a key hub for this type of labor.

“The robots or machines—you’re teaching them how to think and act like humans,” said Naftali, a father of two with a college degree in Mathematics. He was thrilled to find work in this growing field.

“I worked on labeling videos and images,” he added, describing his role.

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During his 8-hour shifts, Naftali would spend his time in front of a screen, analyzing photos and videos. His tasks included drawing boxes around objects, labeling them, and teaching AI algorithms to recognize these items.

“You’d identify items like a TV, a microwave, and so on, teaching the AI to automatically detect them. There was also work involving faces—identifying the color of the face and classifying it as white, Black, or Asian. This helps train AI to identify people based on such characteristics,” Naftali explained.