Episode Details
Back to Episodes“What 21,000 WhatsApp messages reveal about AI utility in extreme poverty contexts” by GiveDirectly
Description
Disclosure: I work at GiveDirectly. This is a linkpost summarizing findings from a pilot we ran in Rwanda. I used AI to assist in writing this post, and it's likely that >30% is AI-generated text.
View our blog and watch a video of recipients using AI here:
https://www.givedirectly.org/the-robots-work-at-night
Last year, GiveDirectly tested whether unrestricted access to an AI chatbot could complement cash transfers for recipients living in extreme poverty. Alongside our usual ~$1,000 one-time transfers in rural Rwanda, we offered 832 recipients access to a ChatGPT-powered chatbot via WhatsApp - a platform most already used - with no restrictions on what they could ask.
What we expected
We anticipated questions about the GiveDirectly program, help planning how to spend transfers, and basic business advice. People did use it for all of those things.
What actually happened
The more revealing pattern was how quickly recipients moved beyond program-specific questions. Across 21,000 inbound messages between November 2025 and April 2026, people used the chatbot the way people use AI everywhere: for family conflicts, sick children, market prices, and questions they couldn't easily take to anyone else. A few examples, translated verbatim from Kinyarwanda:
- "I have conflicts with the [...]
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First published:
June 16th, 2026
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.