A radio station in Poland has ended its “experiment” with AI-powered presenters after receiving pushback from the general public.
The station, called OFF Radio Kraków, first made the news a week earlier, when it relaunched in the wake of firing the human journalists who had presented for it previously.
The replacement was AI-generated, and even the interviewee was AI-generated, as well: The station aired an entirely fictious interview with Polish author Wislawa Szymborska, who won the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature — and who passed away in 2012. It’s another hiccup on the road towards greater AI adaptation.
Non-Existent Gen Z Presenters Weren’t a Hit
Lukasz Zaleski and Mateusz Demski, the just-terminated radio hosts and journalists, were among those replaced in late October with three AI-generated Gen Z presenters: Emilia, Jakub, and Alex, all in their early 20s.
According to station editor Marcin Pulit, the AI-generated approach was always an experiment and was initially designed to last for a three-month period. Now, it’s ending after just a week.
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“After a week, we had collected so many observations, opinions, and conclusions that we decided that its continuation was pointless.” – Marcin Pulit, station editor for OFF Radio Kraków
Pulit added in the statement that the station was “surprised by the level of emotion that accompanied this experiment, attributing to us non-existent intentions and actions, harsh judgments formulated on the basis of false reports.”
Viewership for the state-funded radio station was incredibly low and rose significantly to reach an audience of 8,000 overnight after the AI controversy, according to the New York Times.
In contrast, more than 15,000 signed a petition against the use of AI within days of the station’s relaunch, Euronews found.
People Aren’t Embracing AI-Generated Interviews
Some fans of artificial intelligence have hyped up the potential for conversations with long-passed historical or pop cultural figures, generated by large language models trained on those figures’ writing or the historical record.
However, the format and presentation of a radio interview can turn AI voices into misinformation: Listeners who might tune in halfway through the interview would naturally assume they’re listening to a real interview.
Worse, the interview itself wasn’t accurate to the author herself, according to those in the know. Michal Rusinek, who heads a foundation to manage Wislawa Szymborska’s literary estate, said that the interview misrepresented her voice. According to Rusinek, the AI recreation “was horrible” and made Szymborska sound “bland,” “naïve,” and of “no interest whatsoever.”
AI Replacement Sets “Dangerous Precedent”
Perhaps Mateusz Demski summed up the controversy best with an open letter on the subject.
“It is a dangerous precedent that hits us all.” – Mateusz Demski
He also added that it could lead to “a world in which experienced employees associated with the media sector for years and people employed in creative industries will be replaced by machines.”
Executives across plenty of industries outside of radio stations are definitely interested in cutting costs by adapting AI tools.
The downsides include fewer positions open to creative professionals — and, apparently, the ripple effects of that sea-change may even leave viewers like you unsure if the radio interview you’re listening to on your way to work is with a human being.
