Facepalm: In yet another example of how most people don't want AI replacing humans – no matter how much executives say it saves money – a Polish radio station has abandoned an experiment where its journalists were dismissed and replaced with AI "presenters." The test was supposed to last three months, but the station decided to end it after just a week following a massive backlash from the public.
On October 21, Radio Krakow announced that it was revamping its OFF station, introducing three AI-created voice hosts representing Generation Z. These avatars were 20-year-old journalism student and pop culture expert Emilia Nowa, 22-year-old Acoustic Engineering student Jakub Zielinski, and 23-year-old former psychology student Alex, who is "socially engaged, passionately discussing topics related to identity [and] queer culture."
Response to the move was about as vitriolic as one would expect. Exacerbating the anger was the fact that Radio Kraków's human hosts were no longer at the station because they were "external collaborators" who had not had their contracts renewed, and "not because of AI," claimed editor-in-chief Marcin Pulit.
In an Amazon-level move of PR brilliance, the radio decided that the first thing the AIs should do is interview Wislawa Szymborska, the Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet and writer who died in 2012. This was, of course, another AI recreation, leading to even more outrage.
Mateusz Demski, a journalist and film critic who hosted a show on the station before the Gen Z robots arrived, launched a petition calling for the experiment to end and published an open letter that blasted "the replacement of employees with artificial intelligence." More than 23,000 people signed the petition.
On Monday, Pulit revealed that the experiment using AI presenters was ending. He claimed its aim was to spark a debate about artificial intelligence, and in that respect, it had been a success. It's an interesting way of spinning things, especially as the experiment was meant to last three months.
"After a week, we had collected so many observations, opinions, and conclusions that we decided that its continuation was pointless," Pulit wrote.
He did admit that the level of anger toward the AI presenters and the ghoulish artificial reanimation of the dead was a shock. He said 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."
The cancellation's timing was probably a good thing: the radio had planned an interview with Jozef Pilsudski, a Polish statesman who died in 1935.
In June last year, KBFF (Live 95.5) introduced AI Ashley, making it the world's first radio station with an AI DJ, according to the company. The presenter is a cloned, AI version of midday host Ashley Elzinga, powered by Futuri Media's RadioGPT. AI Ashley is still on the air, filling in for the real Ashley Z when she takes a vacation.
Radio station drops "Gen Z" AI presenters after a week following public outrage
