By @jason_koebler
Publication Date: 2026-03-12 15:08:00
Every day, Michael Geoffrey Asia spent eight straight hours at his laptop in Kenya, staring at porn and commenting on what was happening in each image for an AI data labeling company. When he finished his shift, he started his second job as a human worker behind AI sex bots and sexting with really lonely people who he suspected lived in the United States. His boss was an algorithm that told him to move between different roles.
“It required a lot of creativity and quick thinking. Because when I talk to a man, I have to act like a woman. When I talk to a woman, I have to act like a man. When I talk to a gay person, I have to act like a gay person,” he told me in a coworking space where I met him in Nairobi. After doing this for months, he, like other data labelers, developed insomnia, post-traumatic stress disorder and had problems having sex.
“It got to the point where my body couldn’t function anymore. When I saw someone naked, I don’t even feel it. And I have a wife who expects a…
