Impacts of AI in Eastern Africa Workshop

Hujambo! From March 24th-25th, 2025, Professors Sharath Srinivasan of the University of Cambridge and Stephanie Diepeveen of King’s College London hosted a workshop on the impacts of AI in Eastern Africa. The hybrid event took place at the British Institute in Eastern Africa in Nairobi, Kenya. We heard presentations on seven papers, and the workshop’s participants included Peter Chonka of King’s College London, Mohammed Abdimalik of Jaantus, content moderation labour activists Mophat Okinyi and Richard Mathenge, Mohammad Amir Anwar of the University of Edinburgh, Iginio Gagliardone of the University of the Witwatersrand, Job Mwaura of the Ludwig Maxmillian University, Kojo Apeagyei of the London School of Economics, Amanuel Kebede and Matti Pohjonen of the University of Helsinki, Gianluca Iazzolino of the University of Manchester, Sammy Gasana of Artemis AI, Antonio Casilli and Paola Tubaro of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris, and Adio-Adet Dinika of the University of Bremen. The workshop opened and closed with discussions of broader framing questions around AI in Eastern Africa, and allowed each research team to present their work and receive feedback.

The papers’ focus was on a wide range of AI-related themes, such as the political and social implications of AI in urban infrastructure, the politics of AI and translation of African languages, the intersection of AI and developmental politics, frameworks of futurism and extraction in AI in Africa, digital extractivism in conversational AI, and analyses of data or AI labour conditions and political economy. The workshop leveraged the insights of these works to interrogate broader themes and debates around how to understand how AI fits into economic, social, cultural, and political dynamics in Africa, including the presentist framework frequently associated with AI and the extent to which the political and economic dynamics the innovation introduces are new; the impacts of AI on the political economy and dynamics between Africa and the Global North and  shifting AI studies away from West-centrist frameworks; and nuancing narratives of AI as the future or as dystopia for Africa.