2026-09-05 / Signal #1
Kenyans wrote 2,500 college essays for Western students. Then ChatGPT ate the job.
“He wrote 2,500 other people’s degrees. Then the students discovered they didn’t need him.”
The Story
Teresios Bundi left a Kenyan farming village, moved to Nairobi, and wrote more than 2,500 essays for overseas students—sometimes three a day, using their school logins—earning enough that writers bought Subarus and booked club tables. At the peak, researchers estimated 40,000 people in Nairobi did this work. ChatGPT arrived in 2022; students stopped paying; the industry collapsed. It is a warning for the rest of the global gig ladder.
Why It Matters
Concrete first-rung of the internet economy vanishing—not “AI takes jobs,” but a specific human who impersonated American undergrads for a decade, then watched a model that has never heard of Garcinia cambogia replace him. Identity, money, cheating institutions, and the weird geography of who actually did the homework.
Evidence
The New York Times (Adam Satariano & Paul Mozur, reporting from Nairobi)
Sources
Daily scan: 2026-09-05