Kenyan workers have written an open letter to Joe Biden, urging him to improve their working conditions. In their letter, they explain that they are victims of the practices of American new technology companies, which reserve their hardest and lowest paid jobs for African workers.
Of ” modern slavery »: this is how a hundred Kenyan workers defined their job in an open letter sent to Joe Biden. The President of the United States receives his Kenyan counterpart, William Ruto, on May 23, 2024, as part of an official visit to celebrate diplomatic relations between the United States and Kenya. But the signatories of the letter have little reason to rejoice in the economic cooperation of the two countries.
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“ US Big Tech Companies Systematically Abuse and Exploit African Workers », They indicate. “ In Kenya, these American companies are undermining local labor laws, the country's justice system and violating international labor standards. Our working conditions are akin to modern slavery “. The signatories of the letter target three companies in particular: Facebook, ScaleAI, and OpenAI
Artificial intelligence companies accused of digital colonialism and modern slavery
This is not the first time that the behavior of certain tech companies in Africa has been criticized. In order to train their language model, a key component for the functioning of artificial intelligence, these companies have often called on subcontractors, responsible for annotating images or data. But these subcontractors themselves use underpaid workers, generally based in Africa, and who have to watch sometimes extremely violent content all day long.
“ We do this work at the cost of our health, our lives and our families », Describe the signatories of the open letter. “ This work is mentally and emotionally draining. We are cleaning up Facebook, TikTok and Instagram to ensure these important platforms are not flooded with hate speech and incitement to violence. We label images and text to train generative AI tools for OpenAI. Our job involves watching murder and beheadings, child abuse and rape, pornography and bestiality, often for over 8 hours a day. Many of us do this work for less than $2 an hour. »
These working conditions had already been criticized by several media, including Libération, which notably interviewed Kenyan and Malagasy workers. Everyone denounced what they called “ digital colonization “, a new form of exploitation consisting of giving the hardest and lowest paid tasks to non-American workers.
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This digital colonialism today has a strong impact on the way artificial intelligences work. Observers thus realized that ChatGPT had developed a “ language tic “, because he had been trained in particular by Nigerian English speakers, who frequently use verbs rarely used elsewhere.
The signatories of the open letter to Joe Biden hope that it will allow American manufacturers to realize the problem they have created. Above all, the signatories implore it: “ Any trade talks between the United States and Kenya must take these abuses into account and ensure the rights of all workers are protected. » For the moment, neither president has officially responded to their request.