Former Polish brand envoy Barbara Mróz-Gorgoń defends AI report as draft error

Interview and report controversy

In her first interview since stepping down, Barbara Mróz-Gorgoń addressed the controversy surrounding the publication of an artificial intelligence-generated document that led to her resignation. Speaking to journalists Piotr Świerczek and Grzegorz Łakomski on TVN24's "Czarno na białym" programme, the former plenipotentiary for the promotion of Poland stated that the document titled "Polaków portret własny" was an unedited working draft rather than a final deliverable. The text had appeared on the website of the Fundacja Marka Polska Think Tank, containing linguistic errors, English phrases inserted into Polish sentences, and factual errors such as placing Katowice in northern Poland and asserting that 95% of young Poles speak fluent English. Critics including cybersecurity expert Łukasz Olejnik and Sobieski Institute associate Sebastian Meitz identified extensive artificial intelligence usage throughout the text, which also featured the phrase "traditional breadness". Mróz-Gorgoń described the upload as an accidental mistake, explaining that the file contained rough notes prepared for a conference presentation delivered in November 2025.

This is a human error, an absolute human error. It is not a crime, it is not theft, and it is not extortion.

Project funding and research methodology

Mróz-Gorgoń separated the published draft from the official 156-page report titled "Strategia Marka Polska", which was commissioned by the Ministry of Sport and Tourism. The ministry paid 179,000 PLN for the full project under a contract signed in June 2025, with the final document submitted in December 2025. As a subcontractor on the project, Mróz-Gorgoń received two payments of 30,000 PLN gross, totalling 60,000 PLN gross, and denied public claims that 200,000 PLN had been stolen or extorted. She stated that artificial intelligence tools were used exclusively for linguistic framing, stylistic adjustments, and arranging bibliographies. She maintained that the underlying findings came from empirical research involving more than 100 witnesses, documented by video recordings and transcripts across 180 hours of workshops, though not all raw video recordings were retained.

Resignation and prosecutorial investigation

Following the publication of the document, Mróz-Gorgoń experienced sustained public harassment, receiving hostile emails and text messages roughly every six minutes during the initial days. She stated that an unknown person spat on her and insulted her at a petrol station, causing her to remain inside her home for several weeks. She resigned on 21 August 2026 after 22 days in office, having been appointed on 29 July 2026, writing on X that the scale of hostility made it impossible to continue in the role. Following her departure, the Warsaw District Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation into potential irregularities concerning the execution and financing of the "Marka Polska - podstrategia turystyczna" project. In September 2026, prosecutors conducted investigative procedures at her property and within the Ministry of Sport and Tourism.

It was an outright tsunami, first of bad opinions, later of a perpetuum mobile of self-perpetuating hateful content.