Radio station drops "Gen Z" AI presenters after a week following public outrage
On October 21, Radio Krakow announced that it was revamping its OFF station, introducing three AI-created voice hosts representing Generation Z.
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.
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