What Is the Beast?

One of the best places where we see the bible predict the rise of artificial intelligence--specifically, malicious AI--is in the book of Daniel.

While having a vision of the End Times, God shows Daniel a fourth and final "beast" that will rule the world. Each beast, we are told in Daniel 7, represents a great kingdom, but it is the last one that terrifies Daniel the most.

"After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast—terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts," Daniel writes.

Over and over we are told that this last ruling power will be different from all others that came before it--that it will be a new type of kingdom that hasn't been seen before.

How is it different? Other than being "terrifying and frightening and very powerful," the last beast is described as being made of metal! (Daniel 7:19)

Many Christian scholars interpret this last beast or kingdom as a revival of the Roman Empire, but we must keep in mind that Daniel repeats numerous times that this last beast is unlike anything that ever came before it. It's not going to be just a more powerful version of prior civilizations--it's going to be completely new and terrifying!

I don't know about you, but this sounds a lot like AI to me.

But wait, there's more...

In the book of Revelation, John has a vision of this same beast and tells us that, in addition to being terrifying and made of metal, it also seems to have regenerative properties and can't be killed by humans.

He writes: "I saw that one of the heads of the beast seemed wounded beyond recovery--but the fatal wound was healed! The whole world marveled at this miracle and gave allegiance to the beast." (Revelation 13:3)

Because of this, all of humanity realizes that we can't defeat AI and says, "Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?" we are told in Revelation 13:4.

If you still have any doubt, it says that the beast tells the inhabitants of the earth to create an image (a statue or likeness) that it then breathes life into (just like God did in Genesis when He created human beings) so that the image can speak like a person (hello--the Turing test anyone?).

Listen--I don't have every single verse in the bible figured out and don't pretend to, but there's some crazy stuff in there that sounds an awful lot like what Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and other atheists are very concerned about when it comes to AI.

It's time we as Christians start thinking outside of the box and realize that the bible may have been predicting this all along!

And if you think this is a new idea or that Christians are just now jumping onto the "AI bandwagon," consider that the AI-Antichrist connection goes back over a hundred years.