For the past 9 years, Collins, a 27-year-old freelance writer, has been making money by writing assignments for students in the U.S.—over 13,600 kilometers away from Nanyuki in central Kenya, where he lives. He is part of the “contract cheating” industry, known locally as simply “academic writing.” Collins writes college essays on topics including psychology, sociology, and economics. Occasionally, he is even granted direct access to college portals, allowing him to submit tests and assignments, participate in group discussions, and talk to professors using students’ identities. In 2022, he made between $900 and $1,200 a month from this work.

Lately, however, his earnings have dropped to $500–$800 a month. Collins links this to the meteoric rise of ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence tools.

“Last year at a time like this, I was getting, on average, 50–70 assignments, including discussions which are shorter, ~150 words each, and don’t require much research”, Collins told Rest of World. “Right now, on average, I get around 30–40-something assignments.” He requested to be identified only by his first name to avoid jeopardizing his accounts on platforms where he finds clients.

In January 2023, online learning platform Study.com surveyed >1,000 American students & >100 educators. More than 89% of the students said they had used ChatGPT for help with a homework assignment. Nearly half admitted to using ChatGPT for an at-home test or quiz, 53% had used it to write an essay, and 22% had used it for outlining one.

Collins now fears that the rise of AI could substantially reduce students’ reliance on freelancers like him in the long term, affecting their income. Meanwhile, he depends on ChatGPT to generate the content he used to outsource to other freelance writers.

…John Kamau, who has offered contract cheating services since 2014, disagrees with Collins’ assessment. “Work will still be there because even editing the AI-generated text to avoid detection takes a lot of time and effort”, he said. “So, I don’t think it’s as simple as saying, with AI, students in the US will just do [the assignments] themselves.” Kamau, who doubles as a sales agent with a Nairobi-based construction supplies company, expects more schools will limit and block the use of tools like ChatGPT as AI tech improves. “Academic writers will still have their work. But it will have a positive effect [on] writers who can collaborate with ChatGPT and use it as a guide”, he said.

Wade Brian, a 3^rd-year finance student, provides contract cheating services on the side. He told Rest of World he does not use ChatGPT to write entire essays, as that might cost him his credibility—and future assignments. Instead, he restricts its use to sourcing content, much like Google. Brian agrees that lately, work has been slow. “When I started last year, as a literal amateur, in the first month, I did 30 assignments”, he said. “As I got better, I was doing up to 60 assignments a month. The most I made in a month last year was 40,000 Kenyan shillings [$296].” In March, Brian got barely 10 assignments. “It’s not that I haven’t been looking [for gigs]. I didn’t even hit 10,000 Kenyan shillings [$74]”, he said.

Meanwhile, the freelancers in Kenya who help American students cheat now compete for a smaller portion of the pie. “The first quarter of the year used to be part of the high season because students are back in college for their semesters, and they have a lot of assignments”, Adrian Nyanga, a freelancer who’s been in the industry for 4 years, told Rest of World. “But I’ve seen a dip in the assignments available this year, so there are no longer high and low seasons. It’s bad”, he said. “Remember, there are so many writers who have joined the industry in the past few years, and it was already getting harder to get gigs, but there are even fewer now, especially with AI.”

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