Journalists expect a rise in proliferation of fabricated news.

The German tabloid Bild, which is owned by the publishing house Axel Springer, will fire more than 100 human employees working as editors, subeditors, print production specialists, proofreaders, and photo editors, and employ artificial intelligence instead. 

According to a Frankfurter Allgemeine report based on a leaked email, Axel Springer will delete those posts as part of a wider cost cutting process across its publications, including Bild and Insider. 

The Bild tabloid will "unfortunately be parting ways with colleagues who have tasks that in the digital world are performed by AI and/or automated processes," the email reads in English translation from German.

Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axek Springer, which is one of the largest publishing houses in Europe, said earlier this year that the company would be transformed into a “purely digital” media outlet, where AI would “improve independent journalism.”

His bragging is contradicted by numerous experiments by other media companies, which discovered very soon after incorporation of AI in their workflows that AI-generated texts still lack a sense of depth, contain fabricated citations, quotes, and facts. Editing and proofreading are particularly sensitive.

Axel Springer’s decision has been criticized by the German Journalists' Association, which condemned the automation effort as "not just antisocial towards employees, but also extremely stupid economically."

The Bild is the largest circulation newspaper in Europe. The second is Britain's The Sun.