Polish Radio Station Replaces Hosts with Artificial Intelligence

The Polish radio station OFF Radio Krakow has introduced three new hosts created using artificial intelligence (AI), dubbing it "the first experiment in Poland where journalists are represented by virtual personas generated by AI."

The radio station's broadcasts are now hosted by 20-year-old Emilia "Emi" Nowak, 22-year-old Jakub "Kuba" Zielinski, and 23-year-old Alex. Each has their own narrative and personality. For instance, Emi is a journalism student, Kuba is studying audio engineering, while Alex is a certified psychologist. All three were developed by AI based on the profiles provided by OFF Radio's journalists.

The station's editor-in-chief, Marcin Pulit, emphasizes that the AI hosts are merely tools, performing their functions only because they are used by real journalists. According to him, all content delivered by Emi, Kuba, or Alex is prepared by actual journalists leveraging AI technology. The finalized text is then double-checked by real journalists before being aired. This is how material is produced for the radio station.

The management's decision has sparked a controversial response within the community, especially considering that around a dozen journalists were laid off from OFF Radio this past August. One of them, Mateusz Demski, published an open letter protesting against the "replacement of staff with artificial intelligence" and warned of a "dangerous precedent that will affect us all." As of October 23, the letter had already garnered over 15,000 signatures from individuals who do not wish to become "subjects of the experiment." The editor-in-chief of OFF Radio responded to these claims, stating that the layoffs were not related to replacing journalists with AI, but rather an indication that the station's audience was nearing zero.