Precedent in Poland: Radio replaced all journalists with artificial intelligence
A Polish radio station has sparked controversy and protests after it fired all journalists and then restarted broadcasts with announcers created by artificial intelligence.
The OFF station from Krakow in the south of Poland fired the journalists a few weeks ago, and this week it started broadcasting again and announced that it was “the first experiment in Poland with journalists who are virtual characters created by artificial intelligence”.
The radio announced that it has created three “avatars” that are designed to reach young people with programs about culture, art and social issues, including the problems of the LGBTQ+ community.
Radio director Martin Pulit said in a statement that they want to get an answer to the question of whether artificial intelligence represents more of an opportunity, or a threat to the media, radio and journalism.
The move by Krakow radio attracted attention throughout Poland, after the journalist and film critic Mateusz Demski, who until recently hosted a show on that radio, expressed his protest “due to the replacement of employees with artificial intelligence” in an open letter.
“Dangerous precedent”
“It’s a dangerous precedent that affects us all,” Demski wrote, adding that it could open the door “to a world where experienced employees with years of experience in the media sector and people employed in creative industries could be replaced by machines.”
Demski told the AP agency that the petition he launched by October 23 had been signed by more than 15,000 people, as well as that he had received calls from hundreds of people, including many young people, who do not want to be guinea pigs in such an experiment.
Pulit, for his part, claims that the dismissal occurred because the audience for the work fell “almost to zero”.
On October 22, his station broadcast an interview conducted by an “artificial” announcer with the voice of the Polish Nobel laureate, writer Wislawa Šimborska, who died in 2012.
Minister for Digitization and Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gavkovski said that he had read Demski’s letter and that a legal framework is needed to regulate artificial intelligence.
“Although I am a fan of the development of artificial intelligence, I think that some boundaries are being crossed more and more. Wide application of artificial intelligence must benefit people, not against them,” the minister wrote on the X platform.
Source: Beta
Photo: unsplash
Source: bizlife.rs
