Polish radio station ditches DJs, journalists for AI-generated college kids

Station claims it's visionary, ex-employees claim it's cynical; reality appears way more fiscal

A Polish radio station has ditched its on-air talent for AI in what its editor-in-chief calls an experiment on the effect of AI in society, though it looks like a bid to save cash. 

OFF Radio Krakow, an online and DAB+ subsidiary of the larger Radio Krakow station, announced this week that it was going all-in on AI, with new shows hosted by a trio of Gen Z AI talking heads, "Emi," "Kuba," and "Alex," all with their own biographies and personalities "created by journalists," according to the station. 

Stop us if this sounds familiar: "The content they [the AI hosts] deliver is prepared by real journalists who use artificial intelligence tools for this purpose," OFF editor-in-chief Marcin Pulit wrote in the announcement. "After the text is generated, it is checked and verified by journalists and then processed into sound."

The same goes for written stories on the site, Pulit said, and even musical selections the AI hosts will play during their once-a-week "authorial" music broadcast.

One of the first items published on the site created entirely by AI was an interview between deceased Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner Wisława Szymborska and Emi about this year's Nobel Prize in literature. Unlike in previous cases, this use of a famous dead person's likeness was at least done with consent. 

The decision to turn OFF Radio Krakow into an all-AI wasteland aimed at Gen Z Poles comes after the station fired a bunch of on-air talent, one of the jilted former broadcasters said in a petition he filed to force the station to stop its AI experiment.

In the petition, which as of writing has over 20,000 signatures, Mateusz Demski said that "a dozen or so people" working at OFF Radio Krakow lost their jobs as the studio suddenly pivoted to an AI-centered platform.

Demski blamed Pulit for the decision, stating that it exemplifies how, similar to Hollywood strikes, creative industries remain under threat from AI.

"This 'experiment' is a blow not only to OFF journalists, but to our entire community," Demski said. "The case of OFF Radio Krakow is an important reminder for the entire industry."

Pulit, meanwhile, said that none of the people fired were eliminated because of AI.

"These were guest collaborators who made programs for us once a week," the Polish edition of Business Insider quoted Pulit as saying. "The contracts expired not because artificial intelligence was introduced, but because this formula does not work."

The actual reason, he wrote in the announcement, was to engage in the question of what AI brings to society – both for good and bad. 

"We want to consider what effects the development of artificial intelligence may have on culture, media, journalism, society," Pulit wrote. "Is artificial intelligence more of an opportunity or a threat to media, radio, and journalism? We will seek answers to this question." 

But really, anything to save money

Polish media is undergoing a transformation right now, and that may have more to do with this situation than anything else at the moment.

When current Prime Minister Donald Tusk came to power late last year, one of his promises was to depoliticize the public news service in Poland, which the former right-wing government had used extensively to push state propaganda, the new government alleged.

As such, 17 different regional public radio stations – Radio Krakow among them – were placed into liquidation and forced to restructure. Pulit, now EIC of OFF Radio Krakow, is also the appointed liquidator for the broader Radio Krakow group, and he's been sounding the alarm about the station's finances for a while.

Pulit told Polish media earlier this year that Radio Krakow was in such dire straits that he wasn't sure the station was going to be able to pay its employees. In the same interview, however, he said he didn't plan to lay anyone off.

"This mission program has to be done by someone, so I do not foresee looking for savings on people," Pulit told Polish outlet Onet. Contributors aren't really employees, naturally, so Pulit apparently didn't see any issue with eliminating them in favor of some hip new digital hosts.

But they're just temps too, really – OFF Radio Krakow doesn't intend to keep broadcasting this way.

"The project is time-limited," Pulit noted. "We assume that it will last no longer than three months and will be evaluated." Sorry, Emi, Kuba, and Alex – they don't seem to care much about your future either. ®