What a Finnish church learned from creating a service almost entirely with it

A tale of good versus evil played on the great screen in the sanctuary of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Finland.

Jesus was shown in long-haired clothes and beards, while Satan was dressed in more modern clothes, but with a clumsy and loud voice-all created by artificial intelligence.

Also addressing the flock to Tuesday evening service were the avatars of church pastors and a former President of Finland who died in 1986, reading from the Old Testament.

It was the first church service in Finland united mainly by the Tools, who wrote the sermons and some of the songs, composed the music and created the footage.

The widely advertised experimental service attracted over 120 people to the northeast Helsinki church, much more than in a typical weekly week.

People came from outside the city, as well as a small part of foreigners who admitted that they did not speak Finnish well so well to understand them all.

â € its to people when people talk about u, they are talking about what he can do in the future. But the future is now. â € ¦ He can do all those things that people think he can do in 10 years or more, – said Rev. Petja Kopperoinen, who came up with the idea and brought it to the realization.

The clergy and worshipers said they enjoyed it, but agreed that they would not replace people -led services at any time soon.

“It was pretty fun and fun, but it didn’t feel like a measure or a service.

Rev. Kari Canals, parishioner in St. Paul, echoed her feeling.

“People’s warmth is what people need,” he said.

Other experiments with church services he

Churches and pastors around the world have experimented with him, like the rest of society, try to understand what role he could play in their lives – and if he can attract more worshipers.

In 2023, a service led by him was held in a church in Germany. Last year, an Avatar of “œjezusâ on a computer screen in a Catholic hat in Switzerland received questions from believers and offered answers based on the scriptures.

St. Paul’s Church likes to try new things, with pastors involving football performances and ice hockey matches in their services, along with dance and film festivals.

After attending a conference on him and religion in Geneva and heard about the service in Germany, Kopperoine says he thought: Why not try it?

The canal was on board, such as Bishop Teemu Laajasalo of Helsinki.

Kopperoine worked for weeks with various means of him to collect the 45-minute service, including open chatgt-4o to write words except those from the Bible; Suno to compose tunes, similar to pop music; And the Synthesia platform he was to create self -video vatters, canals and another pastor from existing footage.

Seeing himself on the screen of speaking words, he never said in real life he felt – € œEerie, ”Kopperoinen said.

Another tool, Akool, meanwhile, created the avatar of former Finnish President Urho Kekkonen reading from the Old Testament, and the exchange between Satan and Jesus.

Among the elements produced by him, the clergy and worshipers sang hymns with live organs.

The imposition of borders

The exercise had clear boundaries. He was not involved in the forgiveness of sins in the Helsinki service, and the Eucharist was not done.

Every exit must be checked and edited by a man, and the copy of it is often based on stereotypes, Kopperoinen said.

The tools in general seemed ready to compose religious content, he said. Chatgpt would initially not write dialogue between Jesus and Satan and went with him only after Copperoine assured him that he was a Lutheran pastor and there was nothing wrong with writing it.

Chatgpt also refused to give solutions or blessings, which is a good protection, the channel said, “because it can somehow share things that are very intimate and religious.”

Kopperoine also said that he was aware of the impact of his tools on the environment, including, for example, the amount of water used to strengthen them. Some in the Finnish church Lutheran criticized St. Paul for using him to entertain people at environmental cost, he said.

The importance of human touch

The fans said they found different, interesting and entertaining service, but also confusing. Speaking patterns were fast and difficult to follow.

â € œ I liked the songs. They were really attractive, though they lacked the kind of soul people have, ”said student Jeera Pulkkinen, who did not like the rapid distribution of text tools.

Eeva Salonen, the leading development official in the Helsinki Parish Union, said the service felt – more like a performance “, finding it more unexpected than” would be with real people.

“But I liked it a lot,” she added.

The need for a human element is one of the reasons he is unlikely to replace the real pastors, Kopperoinen said.

“It can’t be empathetic to people. He can’t really answer your questions in a spiritual way,” he said.

However, both Kopperoine and canals believe there is a place in the church for him.

St. Paul already uses it for accounting, and Kopperoine sometimes returns to chatgpt to help him compose preaching or when he has to find verses on a particular topic.

The canal admits that he has “always opposed”, but decided to withstand it with head and now thinks it can help clergy such as searching for sermons and speeches.

Tom Stoneham, a professor of the University of York’s philosophy and an ethical at the Doctoral Training Center in the UK’s safe systems, notes that he can replace people alone – where human function is purely instrumental and transactional, such as “in customer service situations”.

However, even in these situations, a smile or a brief friendly exchange adds value that it cannot be, Stoneham said.

In a religious environment, “is about man, not an instrument. They are not just a means just to achieve something,” he said. â € € € € ™ is the humanity that is adding value to the situation.â €

Anna Puzio, a technology ethics researcher at the University of Twenty in the Netherlands, said that given the concerns with him, it is important for churches and religious groups to experiment with.

In this way they can help – € Presecrate these processes of him and develop him and his design in a responsible way, ”she said.