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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A Polish radio station said Monday that it has ended an “experiment” that involved using AI-generated “presenters” instead of real journalists after the move sparked an outcry.

Weeks after dismissing its journalists, OFF Radio Krakow relaunched last week using virtual characters created by AI as its presenters.

Across Poland, people were angry, expressing fears that humans were being replaced by AI.

The station's editor, Marcin Pulit, said in a statement Monday that the aim had been to spark a debate about artificial intelligence, and that it had succeeded. He said the experiment had been meant to last three months but that it saw no reason to go on.

“After a week, we had collected so many observations, opinions, and conclusions that we decided that its continuation was pointless,” Pulit wrote.

He said the station was “surprised by the level of emotion that accompanied this experiment, attributing to us non-existent intentions and actions, harsh judgments formulated on the basis of false reports.”

The station in the southern city of Krakow had said its avatars were designed to reach younger listeners by speaking about cultural, art and social issues including the concerns of LGBTQ+ people.

The change last week got nationwide attention after Mateusz Demski, a journalist and film critic who until recently hosted a show on the station, launched a petition calling for the station to end the experiment and published an open letter protesting “the replacement of employees with artificial intelligence."

“It is a dangerous precedent that hits us all,” he wrote, and argued it could open the way “to a world in which experienced employees associated with the media sector for years and people employed in creative industries will be replaced by machines.”

More than 23,000 signed the petition.

Last Tuesday the station broadcast an “interview” conducted by an AI-generated presenter with a voice pretending to be Wisława Szymborska, a Polish poet and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature who died in 2012.

Before canceling the experiment, the station had been planning an interview with Polish statesman Józef Piłsudski, who died in 1935.

NEW YORK (AP) — President Joe Biden slammed Elon Musk for hypocrisy on immigration after a published report that the Tesla CEO once worked illegally in the United States. The South Africa-born Musk denies the allegation.

“That wealthiest man in the world turned out to be an illegal worker here. No, I’m serious. He was supposed to be in school when he came on a student visa. He wasn’t in school. He was violating the law. And he’s talking about all these illegals coming our way?” Biden said while campaigning on Saturday in Pittsburgh at a union hall.

The Washington Post reported that Musk worked illegally in the country while on a student visa. The newspaper, citing company documents, former business associates and court documents, said Musk arrived in Palo Alto, California in 1995 for a graduate program at Stanford University "but never enrolled in courses, working instead on his startup. ”

Musk wrote on X in reply to a video post of Biden’s comments: “I was in fact allowed to work in the US." Musk added, “The Biden puppet is lying.”

Investors in Musk’s company, Zip2, were concerned about the possibility of their founder being deported, according to the report, and gave him a deadline for obtaining a work visa. The newspaper also cited a 2005 email from Musk to his Tesla co-founders acknowledging that he did not have authorization to be in the U.S. when he started Zip2.

According to the account, that email was submitted as evidence in a now-closed California defamation lawsuit and said that Musk had applied to Stanford so he could stay in the country legally.

Musk is today the world’s richest man. He has committed more than $70 million to help Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and other GOP candidates win on Nov. 5, and is one of the party's biggest donors this campaign season. He has been headlining events in the White House race’s final stretch, often echoing Trump's dark rhetoric against immigration.

Trump has pledged to give Musk a role in his administration if he wins next month.

There was no immediate response to messages left with X and Tesla seeking Musk’s comment.