While announcing the steps they were taking towards a ‘seamless road connectivity’ across all 47 counties, KURA used an AI image that appeared to show men at work, a crowded town, skyscrapers at the horizon and several wheel loaders littered all over the fresh tarmac.
They wrote: “We are working towards a seamless connectivity across all the forty-seven Counties through the Transformation of Urban Mobility.”
While sharing yet another AI image of what appears to be an almost-complete road and more developments ongoing, they wrote, “Taking shape… towards better and smart cities.”
Hawk-eyed Kenyans on X were, however, unimpressed with the entire form of messaging with many not only blasting the roads body for choosing to use AI to pass a message but also failing to capture critical road necessities in the AI imagination.
Cyber security expert Monka kicked off the storm, saying, “Even in your AI fantasies there’s no drainage, walk lanes, cycle lanes. Your mediocrity knows no bounds!”
Another X user agreed, noting, “So the lack of road amenities on Kenyan roads is really ingrained in your DNA that even in AI simulations you don’t have them? Wow! What amateurism!”
Other people found it hard to comprehend just what exactly the chaps at KURA prompted the AI to produce, given that the images evoked gravely dystopian vibes.
“Was this the prompt: “imagine bad road construction like the ones only Kenya can make. make it inaccessible, treeless and crooked despite being straight. Include a normal-fingered black construction worker in the foreground!?” one user queried.
Some more of the ugliness displayed on the AI images, according to Kenyans, include – lack of trees, dusty roads, cars being driven on an incomplete road, a highway that leads to nowhere and the presence of hawkers crowded by the roadside.
Besides KURA, several other top government and private companies have been employing the services of AI-generated images, models and voices to drive their marketing campaigns, thus bypassing traditional marketing teams.
Other Kenyan companies that have rolled out AI in ads include private school group Pioneer, which ran AI-generated TV ads, publisher Kartasi Group, which uses AI-generated images on the cover of its exercise books, and popular bread brand Supa Loaf which uses AI-generated images on its billboards.
In Nigeria, Coca Cola collaborated with local influencers in an AI-powered campaign over the Christmas period.
