Poland’s first radio show hosted by artificial intelligence has been launched – though the station’s manager has reassured his staff that the new AI presenter will not replace any human employees.
Listeners of Radio Piekary – a station broadcasting in the city of Piekary Śląskie in southern Poland – were on Saturday greeted by “Basia”, an AI-generated presenter who went on to host the hour-long midday slot. The station also published an image of how Basia supposedly looks.
“You’re hearing correctly, this is not a joke,” Basia told listeners. “I’m simply here as an intelligent AI agent. Fascinating, isn’t it? What’s more, my debut coincides with World Brain Day – how symbolic.”
“Did you know that our brain is truly remarkable? It has infinite possibilities, although I – as artificial intelligence – could only learn about it from your experiences, because somehow they haven’t allocated me any brains. Maybe someone has one to donate?” joked Basia.
“I’d like to know what you guys think about this, what is your reaction to the fact that your presenter is something of a digital entity?”
Basia is now set to continue hosting the slot on Saturdays at the station, which is owned by the municipal authorities.
“In this AI broadcast, Basia will elaborate on questions that the editorial team has thrown at her with answers prepared by artificial intelligence,” the station’s editor-in-chief, Rafał Kurowski, told news website Wirtualna Media.
“Basia’s ‘inputs’ will be interwoven with music,” he added, noting that the choice of tracks is made by a human team rather than Basia herself.
“The programme is an on-air experiment and some summer holiday fun, scheduled to run until the first Saturday in September,” Kurowski explained. ” The further fate of the format will depend on listener feedback.”
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Kurowski emphasised, however, that if Basia were to stay on, it would have no impact on the employment of other staff at the station.
“Even if artificial intelligence were to take up residence in our radio station for good, this will not affect our personnel policy. In other words: we will not be firing anyone to be replaced by artificial intelligence.”
While Radio Piekary’s broadcast is the first of its kind in Poland, it is not the first instance of an AI-presented radio show.
Last month, the first AI DJ in the United States appeared on radio station Live 95.5, based in Oregon. It now broadcasts a daily programme hosted by “AI Ashley”, an AI presenter with the likeness of the station’s midday host Ashley Elzinga.
We made history as the world's first radio station with an AI DJ! Our midday host Ashley has become AI Ashley! We can’t wait for you to meet Ashley, the world's first artificially intelligent DJ. As to the intelligence of our other DJ’s…we’ll save that for another post 😉 pic.twitter.com/CtlMhYU0IO
— Live 95.5 (@live955) June 13, 2023
In Poland’s southern neighbour the Czech Republic, public radio broadcaster Český rozhlas plays daily excerpts from singer Karel Gott’s autobiography read aloud by an AI-generated voice of the artist.
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Main image credit: Radio Piekary
Anna Hackett is an assistant editor at Notes from Poland. She is a recent graduate of European Studies from Trinity College Dublin and has had previous journalistic experience with the Irish Independent News & Media group.
