The General Synod has renewed its call for a just peace in Ukraine, after a debate to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion, which fell on Saturday.

The motion, which was carried almost unanimously on Tuesday at the end of a five-day meeting in Westminster, referred to the “ongoing suffering and terror” experienced by Ukrainians two years into the war, and called on churches and politicians to work for an end to the conflict and a restoration of the international order.

During the debate, the motion was amended to include a further call to UK politicians to “affirm their continued support for Ukraine until such time as a just and lasting peace is secured”.

First to speak was the Archbishop of Canterbury, recently returned from his second visit to Ukraine (News, 23 February). He had also spoken, directly but remotely, with Patriarch Kirill. “But I am not neutral on this,” he said. “Ukraine is paying for our security with blood.”

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Ukraine is paying for our security in blood, Archbishop Welby tells Synod https://t.co/vz6s408Ovc

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 29, 2024

It is an increasingly familiar experience. A request for help to a large language model (llm) such as Openai’s Chatgpt is promptly met by a response that is confident, coherent and just plain wrong. In an ai model, such tendencies are usually described as hallucinations. A more informal word exists, however: these are the qualities of a great bullshitter.

There are kinder ways to put it. In its instructions to users, Openai warns that Chatgpt “can make mistakes”. Anthropic, an American ai company, says that its llm Claude “may display incorrect or harmful information”; Google’s Gemini warns users to “double-check its responses”. The throughline is this: no matter how fluent and confident ai-generated text sounds, it still cannot be trusted.

Hallucinations make it hard to rely on ai systems in the real world. Mistakes in news-generating algorithms can spread misinformation. Image generators can produce art that infringes on copyright, even when told not to. Customer-service chatbots can promise refunds they shouldn’t. (In 2022 Air Canada’s chatbot concocted a bereavement policy, and this February a Canadian court has confirmed that the airline must foot the bill.) And hallucinations in ai systems that are used for diagnosis or prescription can kill.

The trouble is that the same abilities that allow models to hallucinate are also what make them so useful.

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AI models like ChatGPT have a tendency to make things up.

Can these hallucinations be controlled? https://t.co/Pwx2b7YxVS 👇

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) February 29, 2024

Nick Skytland likes to ask pastors a question.

“Have you ever considered that the biggest mission field in the world is nowhere in the physical world?” he will say.

“It’s actually the digital world.”

Usually when he asks that, the NASA chief technologist, whose day job is focused on getting astronauts back to the moon, just gets blank stares.

For a few days in October, though, Skytland was surrounded by people who do know the scope and scale of the digital world. And if they didn’t respond to him, it was because they were busy working with artificial intelligence programs to develop real-life solutions to take faith to the digital mission field.

About 200 people gathered at the tech company Gloo’s headquarters in Boulder, Colorado, for the first-ever “AI and the Church” hackathon. Gloo, which is dedicated to connecting and equipping the faith community, invited 41 teams to compete for $250,000 in prizes and $750,000 in additional funding. Skytland and a NASA colleague, Ali Llewellyn, cohosted the event.

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To me adventure is really closely tied with exploration – Nick Skytland #tedxmanitoba pic.twitter.com/kFa3KbvMrF

— TEDxWinnipeg (@TEDxWinnipeg) June 12, 2014

Ukrainian officials are concerned that Russian advances could gain significant momentum by the summer unless their allies can increase the supply of ammunition, according to a person familiar with their analysis.

Internal assessments of the situation on the battlefield from Kyiv are growing increasingly bleak as Ukrainian forces struggle to hold off Russian attacks while rationing the number of shells they can fire.

Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Thursday that mistakes by frontline commanders had compounded the problems facing Ukraine’s defenses around Avdiivka, which was captured by Russian forces this month. Syrskyi said he’d sent in more troops and ammunition to bolster Ukrainian positions.

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Ukrainian officials say there is a risk of Russia breaking through its defenses by summer unless allies can supply more ammunition https://t.co/rw47Nhtngn

— Bloomberg Economics (@economics) February 29, 2024

Congratulations to the three new Diocesan Evangelists commissioned by Bishop David on Sunday evening 25 February. The commissioning took place in the shadow of Belfast’s famous Harland and Wolf cranes at The Gathering in St Martin’s Church.
Pictured right to left with Bishop David are Justin McMinn (The Gathering), Sarah Irwin (St John’s Lurgan) and Paul Hawkins (Glen Community Church).

Our Warden of Evangelists, Capt George Newell, and Archdeacon Jim Cheshire who gave the address, complete the line–up.

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Down & Dromore news: Three Diocesan Evangelists commissioned: Congratulations to the three new Diocesan Evangelists commissioned by Bishop David on Sunday evening 25 February. The commissioning took place in the shadow of Belfast’s famous Harland and… https://t.co/UZynvrVZ7y pic.twitter.com/aTeuXSrgrk

— Church of Ireland (@churchofireland) February 28, 2024

Write deeply upon our minds, O Lord God, the lesson of thy holy Word, that only the pure in heart can see thee. Leave us not in the bondage of any sinful inclination. May we neither deceive ourselves with the thought that we have no sin, nor acquiesce idly in aught of which our conscience accuses us. Strengthen us by thy Holy Spirit to fight the good fight of faith, and grant that no day may pass without its victory; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Tree of the Day pic.twitter.com/tyYAm8cHJ5

— Hayley Twigs in Hair Howard (@HayleyhHoward) February 29, 2024

And he said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a bushel, or under a bed, and not on a stand? For there is nothing hid, except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. If any man has ears to hear, let him hear.” And he said to them, “Take heed what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. For to him who has will more be given; and from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how. The earth produces of itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.

–Mark 4:21-34

"Meadow River Aerial Perspective"#GauleyRiverNationalRecreationArea #AlmostHeaven #WestVirginia #ThePhotoHour pic.twitter.com/41qXtSSvP2

— Thomas R Fletcher (@ThomasRFletcher) February 29, 2024