The Evening Standard has confirmed reports its first weekly edition will feature an AI-written review in the style of its former art critic Brian Sewell, who died in 2015.
Paul Kanareck, the interim chief executive of the newspaper, said Sewell’s estate “are delighted” with the “experimental” review.
Having printed its final daily edition last week the Standard is set to relaunch on Thursday as a weekly publication named The London Standard.
Deadline reported on Tuesday that the Standard “has been making plans to revive its former writer using artificial intelligence”, assigning a bot to write a review of a Van Gogh exhibition launched at The National Gallery this month as though it were Sewell.
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Some commentators on X reacted poorly to the news, describing the virtual reanimation as “ghastly” or “calculatedly offensive” and asking whether Sewell’s estate had been consulted.
Kanareck told Press Gazette: “The London Standard is a bold and disruptive new publication.
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“The first edition has multiple features on AI and London’s central role in this tech revolution.
“It includes an experimental AI review by our legendary critic Brian Sewell, and his estate are delighted.”
Asked whether the review might become a recurring feature, Kanareck said it was “a one-off intended to provoke discussion about AI and journalism”.
The Standard began phasing out its daily edition in July, first cutting its Monday and Friday print runs. The change has resulted in significant redundancies: in early July the business said it was planning to make around 66 editorial redundancies, equivalent to nearly half the editorial staff employed by the daily Standard.
Kanareck wrote to staff last week on the day of the final Evening Standard print run saying that the business “is now on a new and exciting path, but we remain deeply conscious of the change many colleagues faced over the summer. We wish all those leaving only the very best for the future”.
The new weekly title has struck a deal with fellow London freesheet City AM that will see the business paper move into the distribution bins the Standard is leaving vacant for much of the week.
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