Would You Listen to a Radio Show Hosted by AI ‘Journalists’?
I work at a company that creates AI solutions for various types of businesses. And when it comes to technological development — I’m all for it. In marketing alone, depending on the task, 70–90% of tedious, repetitive work has disappeared, leaving me to focus on the creative, strategic, and conceptual aspects. Great.
In Poland, at Off Radio Kraków, it turned out that as of today, three AI-generated avatars will host the shows. We can debate the ethical reasons for creating AI avatars and their use. It’s an important discussion. Replacing journalists with AI, if you put emotions aside, is a business idea, some sort of product development that, at first, will definitely intrigue people. But whether such a solution survives — and becomes financially viable — depends on whether a large group of people will want to listen to avatars powered by language models on a regular basis.
Recently, I was in Copenhagen at the Designmuseum Denmark, where one of the exhibitions, dedicated to the future, showcased examples of past solutions, and why those advanced solutions of their time didn’t become mainstream. One exhibit was Sony’s AIBO, a plastic robot dog released to the market in 2001. The concept was interesting — companionship for children and the elderly, mimicking a real pet without the responsibilities of owning a live dog. Sony expected it to be a hit, but they were sorely disappointed — it turned out that digital pets don’t provide the closeness and bond you can have with a living being. What happened to AIBO after that rocky start? It continued to be produced, with new generations of AI-powered robot dogs. The main markets are Japan and then the U.S. Currently, sales of various robotic animals are still niche and marginal; they don’t fill the gap of wanting to own a pet. Instead, they’ve filled the gap of early adopters interested in technology and AI.
I wonder if the same thing will happen here. Why? Because as humans, we will continue to value human connections and handcrafted creations far more than mass-produced goods. We pay four times as much for hand-molded and painted mugs. Nobody would bother rereading a book written by a machine in 2014 at MIT by Nick Montfort, which was an interesting concept but lacks any voice or nuance. In the context of radio, I wait for my favorite shows every week, not because they’re expertly informative, but because I enjoy the sense of humor etc.
Joanna Maciejewska once wrote on platform X: “You know what the biggest problem with pushing all-things-AI is? Wrong direction. I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.” And I agree with her.
I think the current state of AI shows how we’re trying to push it everywhere in a naïve way, like a child that doesn’t yet know that electrical outlets are fine because they power the appliances at home, but maybe sticking your fingers into them isn’t such a great idea.
What do you think?
Best,
Klaudia
