Ai and the Future of Protest and Political Action in Africa

The recent protest action in Kenya over the scrapped finance bill, has brought about the emergence of the widespread use of technology and the development of new Ai products, that were key instruments in the protest action.

There have been protests throughout other African states in the past that have led to the emergence of new tech such as the “Arab Spring in Egypt” that occurred in 2010 and 2011. Here it was the use of social media that was central to the organisation and communication to a wide audience that had a clear impact on this political uprising as documented here by a Chapman university study.

With a large number of GenZ and millennial population in Kenya, that are very digitally savvy, it is no coincidence that the protests were supported and influenced by new AI driven platforms and tech.

Some of the new AI tools that were created in support of the protests are:

• The Corrupt Politicians GPT, a chatbot focussed on corruption cases involving Kenyan politicians
•  The Finance Bill GPT, – This AI platform provides details and explanations of the controversial bill and its potential impact on prices.
• Protesters contributed to and shared databases of businesses owned by politicians, which have faced boycotts and attacks, and created another chatbot featuring their contributions to parliamentary debates.

Some new Tech Apps such as Zello, that enables mobile phones to be used like walkie-talkies was another tech that reportedly saw a large up-take and was used by protestors to communicate, while various funding platforms were used to raise money to support and assist protestors.

While AI is a relatively new tool for both governments and opposing political actors on the continent. The young protesters in Kenya showed their ability to rapidly develop and deploy new Tech models and high levels of mass adoption of such Tech. These have assisted in creating mass communication of the issues at hand and to understand the impact of the proposed legislation. It provides an example of how AI could shape politics and political action in Africa in the future.

While governments and political parties, may not be comfortable with the introduction of these tech platforms, and there is scope for these to be abused, there is no doubt that they will be playing an ever increasing role in social dialogues in the future. The ability to control or restrict public narratives will no longer be the sole purview of those controlling the government but are steadily being democratized across the continent.