The chatbot is a quick learner.

Ever since its launch last November, ChatGPT has 'learned' to write in te reo. The quality is "scarily good", says Waikato University's Te Taka Keegan (pictured).

But he has a question.

"If they are producing a very good quality of Maori ... where did they get their data from?"

Perhaps AI scraped it from social media sites. If so, it's a worry, he says.

That's because the chatbot's results are so good, the language could shift from a traditional reo to a ChatGPT version, which might mean Maori lose sovereignty over their language.

"We've lost a lot of control over our land, ... the education that our children get; our own data and our own stories is kind of our last control over ourselves. If ... we lose sovereignty over that, it doesn't bode well for the uniqueness that is Maori."

Ngapera Riley is worried about the ethics of information, data sovereignty and te reo.

Her company, Figure.NZ, works to democratise New Zealand data - but the way information is gathered and misused is concerning, she says.

"Once we open it, it's out there, right? But we've decided it is better to let people use the information and access it, than to hide it."

ChatGPT shouldn't be used as a primary source, but as a tool, she stresses. Its results still need human auditing.

"That's where it will get dangerous, if people start to get too lazy and just start using it like that [as a primary source]."

Sonny Ngatai is optimistic te reo Maori can survive AI. He wants to see the language used everywhere.

But ChatGPT needs some boundaries, Ngatai says.

"Where I would put my flag up for data sovereignty is when it comes to our stories, or our narratives, or our tikanga, stuff like that."

Protecting Maori intellectual property rights in those situations is important, he says. "It's not just a matter of stringing words together like a chatbot could.

"It's part of our identity, part of who we are as New Zealanders. There is just so much more to the language then an AI being able to translate what you want to say."

What now?

Even though there are challenges, Keegan is generally positive about AI.

That would mean isolating the chatbot's data source, using Maori to train it and then controlling it at an iwi level. If that could be organised, Maori could retain sovereignty and use the AI as a helpful tool.

Riley is also positive about what ChatGPT can offer. However, Maori must be actively involved.

"My hope is that tools like ChatGPT can help preserve and use [te reo], but we still need the human element to input into the language, and to check that we aren't using incorrect sources," Riley says.

Source

• RNZ

The experimental church service was almost entirely AI-generated. A ChatGPT chatbot delivered a sermon at the church in Bavaria, Germany.

What happened

The sermon chatbot, personified by an avatar of a bearded man on a huge screen above the altar (pictured), told the packed congregation not to fear death, the Associated Press (AP) says.

"Dear friends, it is an honour for me to stand here and preach to you as the first artificial intelligence at this year's convention of Protestants in Germany," the AI avatar said.

It reportedly focused on leaving the past behind, paying attention to the present, not being afraid of death and maintaining faith in Jesus Christ.

The sermon-preaching avatar was one of four avatars taking turns leading the service. They reportedly drew laughter at times for their monotonous, deadpan delivery.

The service lasted 40 minutes. Prayers and music were included, as well as the sermon.

The chatbot developer

A University of Vienna theologian and philosopher, Jonas Simmerlein, used the ChatGPT to create the service, AP reported.

Simmerlein says about 98 percent of the sermon - themed "Now is the time" - came from the chatbot's own writing.

The service was part of Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag (German Lutheran Church Day). The popular biennial event attracts thousands of Christians. Issues addressed at the event this year include climate change, the war in Ukraine, and AI.

"I told the artificial intelligence ‘We are at the church congress, you are a preacher … what would a church service look like?'" said Simmerlein.

He also asked the chatbot to use psalms, prayers and a concluding blessing in the sermon.

The ChatGPT provided "a pretty solid church service," he says. However, no human interaction was able to take place between the chatbot and the congregation.

"The pastor is in the congregation, she lives with them, she buries the people, she knows them from the beginning," Simmerlein says. "Artificial intelligence cannot do that. It does not know the congregation."

Mixed responses

Not everyone agrees with Simmerlein's assessment of the chatbot's effectiveness.

"There was no heart and no soul," one woman said after the service.

"The avatars showed no emotions at all, had no body language and were talking so fast and monotonously that it was very hard for me to concentrate on what they said.

"But maybe it is different for the younger generation who grew up with all of this," she added.

Another attendee - a young pastor - was there with a group of teenagers. He was more impressed by the experiment.

"I had actually imagined it to be worse. But I was positively surprised how well it worked. Also the language of the AI worked well, even though it was still a bit bumpy at times," he said.

But the chatbot missed any kind of emotion or spirituality - which is essential when he writes his own sermons, he added.

Source

• AP
• Fox News