A new Artificial Intelligence (AI) application created to help banks authenticate banknotes has developed a hitch and inadvertently become a manufacturer of “100 per cent real” Sh1,000 Kenyan notes.

By yesterday evening, Kenyans who had got wind of the system were relentlessly minting thousands of notes, with some crossing from the “have-nots” to the “millionaires” club in a matter of hours.

Armed with 3D printers and the faulty app, they could not believe how easy it was to make the amounts of money they have only been reading about in audit reports in the media.

“We are going to make it rain officially. The calamitous rains might have passed but now the real rain is coming,” one Kenyan, who said Forbes should start looking for him, intimated to this reporter.

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“Old money chaps can now move aside. Kenya will henceforth run on new money; AI money,” the man in his early thirties added. “It is now time for us to be young sponsors.”

Mobile money agents in some areas ran out of float as Kenyans rushed to deposit the new cash. There were reports that some agents had closed their stations to hunt for printing outlets.

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“You can’t sit there helping people get rich without trying to get rich yourself. Remember what 50 Cent told us? Get rich or die trying,” said a university student who had gone to deposit Sh401,000 into his mobile money but could not find an agent to help him.

Kenyan politicians, worried that the public was now getting the money they alone are entitled to, made a beeline to owners of 3D printers as they bought extra phones to install the app and cash in.

Rolled bundles of Kenyan currency notes.

Photo credit: Shutterstock

“We are going to make it rain officially. The calamitous rains might have passed but now the real rain is coming,” one Kenyan, who said Forbes should start looking for him, intimated to this reporter.

Mobile money agents in some areas ran out of float as Kenyans rushed to deposit the new cash. There were reports that some agents had closed their stations to hunt for printing outlets.

“You can’t sit there helping people get rich without trying to get rich yourself. Remember what 50 Cent told us? Get rich or die trying,” said a university student who had gone to deposit Sh401,000 into his mobile money but could not find an agent to help him.

Kenyan politicians, worried that the public was now getting the money they alone are entitled to, made a beeline to owners of 3D printers as they bought extra phones to install the app and cash in.

Also Read: When AI helped Gen Z ‘take down’ the government

Also Read: Is your child safe online? Kenya's alarming AI protection gap

“I thought it was the usual wash-wash until I touched one note. This AI thing carefully collated the information shared by the government when it released the new currency. Now it is making notes that are realer than the real ones,” said a woman representative who had seen a clear path to re-election in 2027 with the amount she had minted by yesterday afternoon.

An analysis of the app revealed that it was made to function until noon on April 1, 2026. After that, its makers said, it would self-destruct and disengage from its servers in Venezuela.

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eondieki@ke.nationmedia.com