Radio station in Poland fired its journalists and replaced them with AI 'presenters'

A radio station in Poland has triggered controversy after dismissing its journalists and relaunching this week with artificially intelligence (AI) "presenters".

Weeks after letting its journalists go, OFF Radio Krakow relaunched this week, with what it said was "the first experiment in Poland in which journalists... are virtual characters created by AI".

The station in the southern city of Krakow said its three avatars are designed to reach younger listeners by speaking about cultural, art, and social issues including the concerns of LGBTQ+ people.

"Is artificial intelligence more of an opportunity or a threat to media, radio, and journalism? We will seek answers to this question," the station head, Marcin Pulit, wrote in a statement.

The change got nationwide attention after Mateusz Demski, a journalist and film critic who until recently hosted a show on the station, published an open letter on Tuesday protesting "the replacement of employees with artificial intelligence".

"It is a dangerous precedent that hits us all," he wrote, and argued it could open the way "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".

Firings due to 'low listenership'

More than 15,000 signed the petition by Wednesday morning, Demski told The Associated Press. He said he has also gotten calls from hundreds of people, many of them young people who do not want to be the subject of such an experiment.

Demski worked at OFF Radio Krakow from February 2022, carrying out interviews with Ukrainians fleeing war, until August, when he was among about a dozen journalists who were let go.

He said the move was especially shocking because the broadcaster is a taxpayer-supported public station.

Pulit insisted that no journalists were fired because of AI but because its listenership "was close to zero".

Krzysztof Gawkowski, the minister of digital affairs and a deputy prime minister, weighed in on Tuesday, saying he had read Demski’s appeal and that legislation is needed to regulate AI.

"Although I am a fan of AI development, I believe that certain boundaries are being crossed more and more," he wrote on X. "The widespread use of AI must be done for people, not against them!"

On Tuesday, the station broadcast an "interview" conducted by an AI-generated presenter with a voice pretending to be Wisława Szymborska, a Polish poet and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature who died in 2012.

Michał Rusinek, the president of the Wisława Szymborska Foundation, which oversees the poet's legacy, told the broadcaster TVN that he agreed to let the station use Szymborska’s name in the broadcast.

He said the poet had a sense of humour and would have liked it.