AI Presenter Experiment Pulled From Polish Radio Station After One-Week
/After a week-long run, presenters Jakub “Kuba” Zieliński, Emilia “Emi” Nowak, and Alex Szulc were off the air. The three AI-generated presenters were greeted with a massive backlash. Marcin Pulit, OFF Radio Krakow’s editor in chief said he had assumed the project would last at least three months but after a week the station decided to discontinue the experiment based on “observations, opinions and conclusions” that it was “pointless.” More than 23,000 people had signed a petition calling for intervention by the regulator and officials involved in media ethics.
A related story from RadioWorld: The Bavarian State Center for New Media (BLM) has given Antenne Deutschland its approval to launch a new station programmed and presented by artificial intelligence —Absolut Radio AI, which originally launched in July 2023 as an online streaming service. It is now looking to go national via DAB+
On 22nd October 2024, three new voices were heard on OFF Radio Kraków: Emi, Kuba, and Alex — but they are all “virtual characters” created with AI tools.
While the relaunch was highlighted on the station website as part of “the debate on the opportunities and threats that the development of artificial intelligence brings,” it sparked a backlash led by former presenters on the station.
In an open letter to Poland’s National Broadcasting Council and Media Ethics Council, Mateusz Demski, who hosted a program on OFF for three years, alleged that the AI voices had replaced “a dozen or so people … journalists, artists, musicians.” A petition launched by Demski alongside the letter had nearly 20,700 signatures (as of Oct. 24) calling for a return to human presenters.
In OFF Radio Kraków’s announcement, station Editor-in-Chief Marcin Pulit stated that the new voices are designed as “model representatives of the so-called Generation Z” and that the characters were designed and trained by journalists who also check and verify the AI-generated scripts. AI suggestions are also use to program the station’s musical selections.
““It is worth emphasizing once again that AI tools are just that — tools. In this case, they only fulfil their function because they are used by live journalists. We are testing the capabilities and limitations of this technology at the current stage of its development,” ”
He also stated that the use of AI would be clearly disclosed.
Currently, the project is envisioned as being time-limited and will be evaluated in three months.
