This summer, Regional Radio Drenthe will present an artificial voice reading the news bulletins. The AI ​​voice explained that the announcer wanted to keep up with the times Today on Radio Drenthe.

Starting July 6, there will be no real person speaking on the Saturday and Sunday radio newscasts. This is a trial period: after the summer it will be determined whether the broadcaster will continue to use computer-generated sound.

Synthetic audio is mainly intended for those months, because there are often gaps in the schedule due to holidays. “It’s a useful moment to experiment with,” says editor-in-chief Martin van der Veen.

According to the editor-in-chief, artificial intelligence has “no impact at all” on the content of the bulletin and journalistic work. Van der Veen emphasizes that news articles are and will remain written by editors. “Technology is only used to support journalists.”

Sound doesn’t have a name yet, which is why Radio Drenthe started a campaign today to come up with a name for its digital newsreader. In a radio announcement, the voice offered a suggestion: “Bart, or Bartji. But that might be too obvious.”

Another regional radio station, Omroep Brabant, also announced this The beginning of the artificial intelligence experiment on me. The presenter was cloned into an artificial intelligence character. “With this AI presenter, we can produce simple videos in a very short time. This can be a great addition to our messaging,” editor-in-chief Renzo Feenstra said at the time.

The broadcaster also said that she wants to cater to young people and people with low literacy who prefer watching videos rather than reading stories.

Veenstra said he did not fear the trial would damage the broadcaster’s credibility. “We clearly state in the video that the broadcaster was created via artificial intelligence, but the video content and images are real.”