The Formal and Informal Regulation of Labor in AI: The Experience of Eastern and Southern Africa

The spread of AI technologies has had far reaching consequences for work and employment regulation around the world. This conceptual paper explores the case of AI and formal and informal regulation in southern and east Africa, according particular attention to the cases of South Africa and Kenya. Within the region, governments seem primarily concerned with the potential of AI to promote economic diversification, rather than the protection of employees whose work autonomy-and, indeed, jobs-have been affected by the rise of AI technologies. There have been periodic efforts to promote codes of conduct, but these are primarily voluntary and industry centred. Unions and ad hoc worker associations have sought to push back; here, progress has been very uneven, although in some cases, this has made for employers accepting the need for basic rules of fair play. Meanwhile, several governments in the region have purchased AI technologies to monitor citizens and have deployed them against unions.