AI church service spurs concerns; WI teaching retention numbers - Striking a Chord…

AI church service spurs concerns; WI teaching retention numbers

If people are unsettled by the thought of an AI (artificial intelligence) newscaster relaying the news to them on TV, as they should be, imagine how much more unsettling it would be to have an AI-generated “Jesus” claiming to speak God’s Word. That was the experience of 120 or so churchgoers at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Helsinki, Finland, who participated in an almost entirely AI-generated service on the evening of March 4, the first of its kind in Finland, The Washington Times reports.

A large screen was set up in the front of the sanctuary and congregants watched a conversation between “Jesus” and “Satan,” both avatars generated by the AI tool Akool. They also listened to Scripture read by avatars of the church’s pastors and the former president of Finland who died in 1986. AI assistants wrote the sermons and some of the songs, as well as created the visuals.

“It was pretty entertaining and fun, but it didn’t feel like a Mass or a service… It felt distant. I didn’t feel like they were talking to me,” Taru Nieminen told The Associated Press. This is not the first service like this. In 2023, an AI-led service was held in a church in Germany. Last year, an avatar of “Jesus” on a computer screen in a Catholic chapel in Switzerland took questions from believers and offered responses based on Scripture.

Rev. Petja Kopperoinen, who spearheaded the Finnish project, said he wanted to show that AI wasn’t just for the future but for now. He admitted it was “eerie” seeing himself on screen speaking words he never said. He also said that ChatGPT initially refused to write dialogue between Jesus and Satan, and only agreed to do so only after he assured the chat bot that he was a pastor and there was nothing wrong with it.

There were also limitations to the service. The Eucharist was not performed and AI did not hear people’s confessions, nor offer absolution or blessings. Kopperoinen also said that any output from AI needed to be fact-checked by a human.

Still, the service and others like it represent a previously-unheard-of foray into the religious sphere that many would still consider inappropriate, if not downright blasphemous. In a world where church remains one of the few public institutions where people can gather for free fellowship and a shared experience, the replacement of people with empty personas on screens is especially troubling. A virtual guide cannot offer human touch, empathy, or true connection.

To be clear, technology itself is not the problem here. There are some religious sects that shun most modern conveniences and technological advances. To be honest, in a lot of ways they are probably better off for it. Smartphones have arguably made us dumber. But getting back to the point, technology can definitely be used for good. It has been and will continue to be used by the church in many creative ways to reach the globe. As one example, in late February, an estimated 7 million people from 225 countries and territories came together for Gather25, a 25-hour global prayer event. The event was livestreamed to more than 21,000 groups on six continents. Event leader Jennie Allen explains this would not have been possible without the use of some of the latest AI translation technology, which allowed prayers and worship lyrics to be translated live across multiple languages.

“We are living in Pentecost… The only reason the global Church was able to gather for the first time is that technology,” said Allen. So, we have two very different examples of AI being used. Where do we draw the line? Well, when the line between virtual reality and actual reality becomes blurred, that’s certainly cause for concern. There’s a big difference between AI technology being used to translate speech coming from an actual person versus an AI chatbot claiming to represent Jesus or speak on behalf of Jesus. Best go to Scripture if you want to know what Jesus actually said.

We also have to look at the motive. St. Paul’s Church in Helsinki has a history of being “experimental” with its services, including showing soccer and ice hockey matches during services, along with dance and film festivals. The question then becomes, what is the point of people going there? Is the service for entertaining man or worshipping God? Of course, a lot of churches in America today need to ask that same question.

AI also opens wide the door to deception and misrepresentation, as it’s an easy way to modify a person’s image or words and make the representation indistinguishable from the real thing. So, in the world we’re living in, we need to be wise and alert. - The most recent workforce report released by the Department of Public Instruction found that Wisconsin was producing more teachers than are retiring from the profession, WPR reports. In 2022-23 school year, there were 2,187 retirements. At the same time, 3,334 Wisconsinites completed educator preparation programs.

However, the state still struggles to retain teachers. Just over half of licensed teachers — 55.6%— remain in the profession after seven years. The percentage is even less, 46%, for special education teachers.

I’m sure there are many factors contributing to the retention problem, but I would venture to guess part of it is an increase in student behaviors, resulting from uninvolved and/or entitled parents who expect the school to raise their kids for them. If teachers are spending all their time managing bad behaviors, they don’t have time left to actually teach.

There is also the outdated state funding formula that is inadequate to meet the needs of school districts, so they continually have to go to referendum and perhaps cannot pay their teachers as competitive a salary as they otherwise would.

Also, the more testing and data reporting requirements and government red tape placed on teachers and administrators, the more time they have to spend on that and the less time they have to focus on being the best teachers they can be, or in the administrators’ case, supporting their teachers.

Just food for thought. Have an excellent week!