Polish radio station fires journalists to replace them with AI 'presenters'

(CLO) A Polish radio station has caused controversy after firing journalists to replace them with AI-generated "presenters".

Weeks after laying off journalists, Radio OFF Krakow in Poland relaunched this week with "the first experiment in Poland where journalists are virtual characters created by AI."

The radio station in the southern city of Krakow said the three virtual characters were designed to reach younger listeners with cultural, artistic and social issues including LGBTQ+ concerns.

"Is artificial intelligence an opportunity or a threat for media, broadcasting and journalism? We will find the answer to this question," the station's head, Marcin Pulit, wrote in a statement.

Radio Krakow headquarters in Krakow, Poland. Photo: Beata Zawrzel

The change has drawn national attention after Mateusz Demski, one of the journalists fired by OFF Krakow Radio, published an open letter on October 22 protesting against “the replacement of employees with artificial intelligence.”

“This is a dangerous precedent that affects us all,” he wrote, arguing that it could pave the way “to a world where experienced media workers and those working in creative industries are replaced by machines.”

As of the morning of October 23, more than 15,000 people had signed a petition opposing the replacement of human workers with artificial intelligence, Mr. Demski said. He has also received calls from hundreds of people, many of them young people, who do not want to be the subject of such an experiment.

Mr Demski had worked at Radio OFF Krakow since February 2022, conducting interviews with Ukrainians fleeing the crisis, until he was fired in August along with about a dozen other journalists. He said the move was particularly shocking because the radio station was a public service supported by taxpayers.

Mr Pulit, the station's head, insisted that no journalists had been fired because of AI but because the audience was "almost zero".

On October 22, Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski spoke out, saying he had read Mr. Demski's appeal and that laws were needed to regulate AI.

"While I am a fan of AI development, I believe that certain boundaries are increasingly being crossed. The widespread use of AI must be done for humans, not against them!", he wrote on social network X.

Ngoc Anh (according to CNN)

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/dai-phat-thanh-ba-lan-sa-thai-cac-nha-bao-de-thay-bang-nguoi-dan-chuong-trinh-ai-post318433.html