Polish radio station ditches DJs, journalists for AI-generated college kids | Hacker News Reader

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

theregister.com

25 pointsBrajeshwar15 comments

Poland has an exorbitant amount of free radio stations, like 100x more than in most other countries. Like they have the youngest population in Europe (heavily catholic, no abortion rights).

They had the first techno radio stations, and of course they'll have the first AI automated stations. The question is only if it's good enough. Because the competition there is fierce when every 10th student broadcasts his own radio stream.

I grew up in a small town in Poland. I remember a friend of mine creating his own radio station. It was really fun, many of my friends listened to it, so we had things to discuss. They even did some talk shows.

It was magic for me back then and seemed amazing that anyone could just create a radio with a minimal startup cost.

> Like they have the youngest population in Europe (heavily catholic, no abortion rights).

That's an outdated view. After the baby boom of the early 1980s fertility rate started dropping - a process greatly accelerated by the shift to capitalism. Overall the population of Poland peaked around the turn of the century and has been largely in decline ever since.

Religious observance has been in decline since at least 2005, after pope John Paul II died. Currently less than 30% of the population attends mass on a regular basis.

No abortion rights is correct - it has actually gotten worse in recent years and the current government, despite running on a liberal platform, is dragging its feet regarding the issue. Some cite that as one of the reasons for catastrophically low birth rates, especially considering a few high profile incidents where an abortion would have likely saved the mother's life, but ultimately wasn't performed.

In the future, "no AI" will be a badge of premium quality a bit like "organic" is today.

Most of the FM radio sounded ai generated for years anyway

Consolidation hasn't improved radio or music. I'm particularly annoyed by the trend of remote/virtual DJs serving bland robostations across dozens of localities.

Add in a decline in listeners (vs. streaming, podcasts, etc.) and this is what you get.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_homogenization

I like how HN is so sure this is bad and will flop like Hatsune Miku isn't proof positive that this can work and work well. You get a broadcast personality who is consistent, doesn't age, doesn't ask for raises, can play 24/7, and can't have sexual assault allegations. You can write fun backstories, create interpersonal drama between other fake DJs, it turns the DJ part into part of the entertainment itself.

I think it would be fun to write and produce a long-form narrative told this way.

People generally don't like Miku all my herself. They wouldn't pour effort into music and graphics if that were the case.

Even then, covers of the songs where real people sing them are quite popular.

Let's create bots to listen it.

It’s a shame I can’t speak polish, it’d be interesting to hear the results of the experiment.

I heard listenship jumped 1000% (not surprising, it was rather unknown radio, but gained nationwide popularity) - I wonder if it's going to have some sticky listenship

Curiosity killed the listenship.

nVidia Killed the Radio Star

Ooooh, that’s was unexpected! :)

This radio station is in chapter 11, They went with AI because no money to pay staff.

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