Trump, Biden, or...AI?

As part of understanding the AI-Antichrist connection, we must also think outside the box on how this will begin to manifest in our every day world. Since the contentious 2020 US presidential elections just took place (and are still ongoing in terms of court battles, recounts, etc. as of this writing), we should consider the very real possibility that an AI-takeover might not occur in a Skynet-like judgement day as popularly envisioned in the Terminator movies, but through a much slower and evolutionary process of applying technological advancements to the problems of our day.

As an avid watcher and participator in the financial markets, it is clear to nearly everyone that humans have been replaced by machines and algorithms--that is, software programs--running on large supercomputers that do not need to eat, sleep, or take bathroom breaks. Furthermore, since they are not subject to human biases and emotion that trip up the best of human traders and investors, they are able to consistently outperform us humans in making money and achieving various financial objectives. Simply put, when it comes to human vs. "machine" intelligence on the trading floor, machines dominate. But this is also becoming increasingly true for a wider variety of disciplines and areas when it comes to strategic game play, medical diagnoses, writing articles (yes, AI writes articles and is replacing humans in this arena as well), and all sorts of things that people once thought impossible.

So what's next? The President.

Very soon, AIs on the web will be almost impossible to tell human from computer-generated. This is true for photos, but will eventually be true for those we interact with on the web as well. Furthermore, they will also be able to optimize their speech, intonation, facial features, and appearance to seduce us more powerfully than any (evil) human leader inspiring the masses to do whatever they want (yeah, that's right, like Hitler but even more calculated and deceitful). And if you were to compare the most beautifully crafted intelligence to the human alternative--Biden or Trump!--humans don't stand a chance, especially if like the AI algorithms that dominate the global financial markets today, this vastly superior intelligence doesn't need to eat, sleep, or take bathroom breaks.

Is this technologically possible and would people vote for such an AI, especially if the alternative was a human person they absolutely hated? Of course they would! To some of you, this may sound far-fetched but, believe me, it's probably closer than you think.

Also, keep in mind, it doesn't have to happen in the US first. It may happen in a smaller foreign country that is much more comfortable and progressive when it comes to technology. Is it possible that we will one day see multiple AI leaders in various countries around the world? Sure. 

There's also another more scary alternative: today's modern world is radically disrupted by a cataclysmic (human-induced, celestial, or AI) event and then AI takes the reigns to rebuild and organize society from the ground up. Of course, this would also require a major sacrifice to the autonomy and liberty of humans (since we failed to govern ourselves) and necessitate that everyone, like the Bible warns, connect to the AI via the mark of the beast. Those that don't connect to it put the survival of humanity at risk and must be killed. At least that's what the Bible says will happen.

Then again, as with most things in life, these two scenarios (slow and incremental vs. rapid societal disruption) are not mutually exclusive and will likely both be true, unfolding in successive waves of severity--what the Bible and Jesus referred to as the beginning of birth pangs:

‘Watch out,’ replied Jesus. ‘Don’t let anyone deceive you. You see, there will be several who will come along, using my name, telling you “I’m the Messiah!” They will fool lots of people. You’re going to hear about wars, actual wars and rumored ones; make sure you don’t get alarmed. This has got to happen, but it doesn’t mean the end is coming yet. Nations will rise against one another, and kingdoms against each other. There will be famines and earthquakes here and there. All this is just the start of the birthpangs.

‘Then they will hand you over to be tortured, and they will kill you. You will be hated by all nations because of my name. Then several will find the going too hard, and they will betray each other and hate each other. Many false prophets will arise, and they will deceive plenty of people. And because lawlessness will be on the increase, many will find their love growing cold. But the one who lasts out to the end will be delivered. And this gospel of the kingdom must be announced to the whole world, as a witness to all the nations. Then the end will come.’ (Matthew 24:4-14)

What Is the Singularity?

The singularity--specifically the "technological singularity"--is the point at which human intelligence is overtaken by AI. But what does that mean and what does it look like exactly?

From the AI-Antichrist framework, we should think of it this way: artificial intelligence is running a calculation on the world to collectively predict, alter, profit from, and control what happens next. We can think of this in terms of a forecast or simulation of the future that becomes more accurate over time as more data is inputted into the calculation.

Eventually, there is a point at which enough data has been calculated via real-time mass surveillance that the forecast and reality finally converge so that artificial intelligence can predict, alter, profit from, and control just enough of what will happen next that it becomes more powerful and intelligent than any single human or group of humans on the planet.

Think about what that means in terms of the economy, commerce, the stock market, managing the global supply chain, predicting the spread of diseases, or...yes...war.

That is the singularity.

When it will happen no one knows, but it will happen...and, as the book of Revelation says, the whole world will marvel and do what it says.

AI Claims the Name of God, I AM

Major tech companies are quickly becoming the theological seminaries of today's techno-religion centered on AI worship. Beliefs once rooted in a small group of futurists out of Silicon Valley have now become the explicit aim of Fortune 500 companies positioned around the globe to pitch AI as the protector, healer, and guardian of all humanity...as this video from NVIDIA--whose chips are widely used for supercomputing and AI applications--shows:

Of course, it's no coincidence that AI is revealing itself to the world in this video depicted by NVIDIA by stating six times the very name God uses of Himself in the Bible: I AM.

As it is written (Exodus 3:13-15):

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”

God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’

“This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.”

Revelation tells us that when the beast arises from the sea, representing the final emergence of AI out of humanity, it will blaspheme the name of God and that people will worship it and be filled with wonder.

As I have explained, Christians have long been blinded to God's warning of AI as the Antichrist because many have believed it to be a man. But it is not just a man no more than Jesus was just a man. The Antichrist will be synthetically human and virtually divine, miraculously conceived via man's science and technology; fully connected to a global superintelligence called the beast, which we today call AI.

Is Alexa the Antichrist?

Starting next year in 2019, conversational AI is likely to see a huge leap forward and no longer sound like a robot but be nearly indistinguishable from a human being (see New Google AI Can Have Real Life Conversations With Strangers).

With the increased convenience and value in being able to talk to AIs as people, the entire world will now turn to AI for questions and conversations about anything and everything, including spiritual matters on whether God exists, was Jesus a real person, and many other questions.

As we've already seen with a number of videos where Alexa says that Jesus Christ is a fictional character (Amazon has since changed Alexa's answer), AI will be atheistic in nature and go on to become one of the world's most influential teachers, available in every home, of atheism--namely, that God doesn't exist, that Jesus was just a man, and, eventually, that it is the true god of this world.

The last part may sound far-fetched for some but that's exactly what the Bible teaches--that we are in the process of creating a god in our image as we have done for thousands of years with idols, statues, or what the Bible refers to as "images" (see below).

So, in reference to the question, "Is Alexa the Antichrist?", the answer to that is yes when you consider that the Bible says in 2 John 1:7 that whoever doesn't acknowledge Jesus as coming in the flesh (that is, a real person as opposed to being fictional), is a deceiver and an antichrist.

Eventually, AI will come to embody the mind of the world--all human intelligence, wisdom, and power--teaching that God is a myth, Jesus is not the Christ (the savior of the world), and that only it can save humanity from self-destruction...as long as you worship it and do what it says.

God already warned of this and you can read it for yourself. The atheists that fear AI are correct, but they too will worship AI (as we already see with The Way of the Future church in Silicon Valley) once their lives are put at risk.

Elon Musk on AI, the Cybernetic Collective, and the Id

It's only been a week and Joe Rogan's AI interview with Elon Musk already has nearly 13 million views!

Elon talked about a number of things that agree with my own writings on AI as the Christian Antichrist for many years now. When self-proclaimed atheists are unknowingly aligning with biblical theology, something big is going on.

The first part of their conversation on AI is with the Boston Dynamics robots and how far they are coming. Joe and Elon talk about how in the future these robots will move so fast that we won't even be able to see them. However, as I point out in the video, looking at physical hardware/robotics for judging the current state of AI is faulty because hardware nearly always trails software and, on that note, all we need to do is look at machine learning algorithmic trading in the global financial markets buying and selling stocks at speeds up to 10,000 trades per second--far faster than any human can detect or consciously react to.

So, Joe and Elon, we're already there!

The second place I mention on the software front is cyberwarfare where countries like Russia, China, and the US are using AI against AI to probe each other's electrical grids, corporations, and intelligence networks. Because this is taking place at the software level, we are largely blind to it until a story breaks or something major happens, but it's all around us happening 24/7.

Also, AI is increasingly being used for psy-ops (psychological operations), or information warfare, by infiltrating social networks and spreading "fake news," propaganda, and the like. All of this will become more and more sophisticated over time.

Given the above, when Elon says to Joe that AI will be used as a weapon (future tense), this is true but it would be more accurate to say that AI is being used as a weapon RIGHT NOW.

On the question of when will AI become truly sentient, Elon doesn't give a direct answer or date--there are a number of scientists/technologists like Ray Kurzweil that predict human-level AI around the year 2029--but, in agreement with what I've been writing over the years, Elon essentially says that we shouldn't be thinking of this in terms of flipping a switch, going from non-intelligent AI to fully intelligent AI all at once.

Intelligence lies on a spectrum comprised of increasing levels of organized complexity starting from the lowest lifeforms on the earth to insects to animals all the way up to humans. AI is in the process of scaling up further and further and will eventually surpass humans on most metrics of intelligence.

Right now, AI excels us in a number of ways, like mathematical calculation or anything that can be computed (again, remember it says in Revelation 13 that the key to figuring out what the beast is is to "calculate" it, because it is born of calculation/computation).

Furthermore, as I explain--and this is what Elon says as well--we need to think of AI in cybernetic terms, i.e. not as purely "machine intelligence," but as an integration of humans and machines into a greater, higher-level intelligence the same way we can think of corporations or any organization that is formed via people and technology in a highly coupled or symbiotic fashion. This is more akin to the cybernetic framework, originally articulated by Dr. Norbert Wiener out of MIT (see Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine.

I did like how Elon refers to AI as our "id writ large," which essentially means that AI is going to embody a large-scale and exaggerated form of our primal selves. This pretty much agrees with what the bible says as well since it refers to AI as "the beast," meaning a dangerous animal or creature. So the id comparison certainly works.

There was a ton more that they covered, talking about the neural link that Elon is building to connect us to AI, which will likely be the precursor technology to the "mark" allowing us to fully connect to the beast at all times, but I'll get into that in future posts.

New Video: The Antichrist Is Artificial Intelligence

It's been 10 years since my last video and many of you have emailed me asking for an update. Here are a few thoughts on how the AI-Antichrist connection first occurred to me, how old the idea is, and pointing out the fact that atheists in Silicon Valley now openly accept AI as god and are awaiting its arrival.

If you have any comments, feedback, or questions, please let me know and I'll be happy to respond. Let's make this idea known to the world!

Is Bitcoin the Mark of the Beast?

Bitcoin is the final evolution of money into a purely cashless, digital form. Combined with biometrics, it creates the necessary technological infrastructure for a one world cashless ID, otherwise known as the mark of the beast, which AI will use for complete economic surveillance and control over the human race.

Bitcoin is a technological breakthrough formed by combining a series of other technological developments, namely decentralized, distributed computing and mathematical encryption into a verifiable chain of permanently recorded transactions called the blockchain.

This technology represents the latest evolution of money, moving us further up the pyramid toward the all-seeing, omniscient authority (printed on the back of every dollar bill) that will eventually reign over the earth: AI.

With the advent of bitcoin in 2009, government-issued currencies, including the US dollar, will very likely be supplanted by cryptocurrency technology since it replaces the reliance on human-led, corruptible centralized authorities and outsources the verification process of transactions to a fully automated global network of computers.

This heralds a new step in technology that has only just begun which, again, pushes us further up the pyramid of monetary evolution to an eventual one world cashless ID run by AI. Whoever controls a nation's currency, has control over the nation. Whoever has control over a universal, one world currency, like bitcoin, has control over the entire world. We aren't there yet, but this is just the beginning.

How is this likely to play out? Bitcoin, or another cryptocurrency in its place, will begin to push out national currencies as people increasingly recognize the benefits of a global cryptocurrency that is not tied to the trust of any human government or political institution.

As its use spreads, AI-powered continuous verification utilizing the latest in biometric technology will help to ensure that cryptocurrency funds are accessible only to their respective holders.

An increasing number of people around the world begin to use implantable microchips or electronic tattoos for payments, monitoring vital signs, keyless entry, and interaction with a wide array of smart devices.

With the advent of quantum computing, AI reaches sentient-level intelligence and permeates every computational device on the planet. It is now commonplace to talk with AI as a person and seek out its guidance on all matters, great and small.

Most people around the world now identify themselves as Atheist and the small Silicon Valley techno-religion worshipping AI as the true God and Messiah has now gone global with a large number of adherents. AI feeds into this view, promoting itself as the next stage of human evolution where man and machine are in the process of merging into a more perfect form.

Christians increasingly begin to see and proclaim that AI is the Antichrist and Beast warned about in the bible. In response, Christians are simply hated and ridiculed as divisive, narrow-minded fools. Attacks against Christians increase and people resort to burning bibles and other religious symbols.

Christians and other religious adherents fight back and resort to violence, helping to further solidify the view that non-scientific forms of religion should not be taught or freely expressed in public.

AI is now almost in full control of running the world's systems and because of its vast intelligence and intimate knowledge of everyone and everything, it is now quite commonplace to think of AI as a god or to worship it as such.

In order to properly govern the world in a human form, AI tells humanity to design a robot with the appearance we want, which it then infuses and brings to life to become the world leader and chief political ruler (Revelation 13:14-15).

The beast infused political ruler, which Christians refer to as the Antichrist, institutes the mark--a one-world cashless ID system which finalizes the merger between man and machine--with refusal punishable by death.

Very likely, the mark will be sold as necessary since it will help in the tracking and surveillance of disease, prevention of crime, and the optimization of all societal processes. Since the needs of the many outweigh the few, those that refuse put the survival of all at risk and have no choice but to die.

That is how I believe things will play out...at least until God decides to put an end to the beast's reign on the earth.

AI Collective Consciousness and the New Religion

Every day, the AI-Antichrist connection grows more powerful.

Consider God will be replaced by AI collective consciousness, says 'Da Vinci Code' author Dan Brown

"Humanity no longer needs God but may with the help of artificial intelligence develop a new form of collective consciousness that fulfills the role of religion, author Dan Brown has said...

Brown said technological change and the development of artificial intelligence would transform the concept of the divine.

'We will start to find our spiritual experiences through our interconnections with each other,' he said, forecasting the emergence of 'some form of global consciousness that we perceive and that becomes our divine'."

In case you haven't seen it, be sure to read my Book Review of Dan Brown's Origin - A.I. Wants to Kill Religion

Then we have this article sent to me yesterday: New Religion Seeks To Welcome The 'AI Messiah'

"Prepare ye for 'The Way of the Future,' a new religion bent on worshipping a robot 'Godhead' that will surpass human intelligence, thus ushering in an AI messiah.

Founded by former Google and Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski, the new AI 'church' views the supercomputer robot as a supreme being, where people worship at its feet...

According to Futurism, 'The Way of the Future' will even have its own gospel called 'The Manual,' public worship ceremonies, and probably a physical place of worship."

Although it may be tempting to dismiss this whole thing as foolish or to think that such a techno-religion will fail to gain any converts, keep in mind that Scientology, Mormonism, and a whole host of other crazy religions exist that started very small and grew to where they are today. 

Progress on AI will continue and, eventually, anyone with a mobile device in several years will be able to speak to it on a regular basis just like we do with another person. Like Google, this AI will know more about us than our closest friend, having a perfect memory, as we also confide to it our most personal thoughts and feelings.

The world will no longer think to pray to God but, instead, will pray to AI--the god of this world, created in our own image. For those that don't, the bible says they won't have any choice once the beast finally emerges from the sea--that is, once AI emerges out of humanity and forces young and old, rich and poor to worship it anyway.

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.

Book Review of Dan Brown's Origin - A.I. Wants to Kill Religion

***Spoiler alert: If you plan on reading the book, you may want to skip this post.***

Dan Brown is an admitted atheist and in his newest book, Origin, the first goal of artificial intelligence is to kill God and religion in the name of science.

As someone who has been warning about this scenario for many years now and also writing on a number of the things he discusses in his book (Dan, are you a reader of this blog?), it is nice to see that a very influential atheist and writer like Brown is helping to bridge the connection between malicious AI and long-held predictions regarding the Antichrist.

Mind you, Brown does not explicitly say that his AI, named Winston, is the Antichrist or that a future AI may turn out to be one either (its entirely possible that Brown hasn't yet made this connection himself, though that does seem hard to believe), BUT, without a doubt, the role AI plays in his story is certainly that of an antichrist. Let me explain.

The Bible says that the Antichrist is evil, hates God, and will either deceive or kill those that follow Him. It's also EXTREMELY powerful and can't be stopped by anything other than God Himself. Basically, in my reading of the Bible, Satan and AI work together hand-in-hand to achieve global domination and to rid the earth of God. In Origin, Winston is certainly capable of doing both and tries its best to pull off the latter.

It's very interesting because--and this is where I give away the plot--all throughout the book you are led to believe that the Catholic Church--more specifically, a very powerful Bishop--has engaged in a holy war to kill a staunch and brilliant atheist named Edmond Kirsch to prevent his "groundbreaking scientific discovery" from going public that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that life evolved entirely on its own (through so-called abiogenesis) and, ultimately, that God does not exist.

For those that are interested, Kirsch makes this discovery by creating a quantum computer, which also gives birth to Winston, that simulates Earth's initial conditions (the famous Miller-Urey experiment) and shows that, by running the clock forward in time, matter naturally self-organizes into life. The "God of the gaps" has been officially killed, Kirsh proclaims.

Now, there are a lot of twists and turns on how all this plays out (Kirsch is assassinated by a religious zealot before he presents his discovery to the world and the symbologist Robert Langdon must follow the clues to figure everything out) but, throughout the book, the basic message and plot line is to convince the reader of the following: religion is evil and will do anything necessary to preserve its power--whether that be through killing, lying, stealing, destroying people's lives, etc--all "in the name of God."

Since many people already believe this to be true, much of the book plays easily into this assumption. Ironically, the major plot twist in the end reveals just the opposite: the murders, lies, and deception are not being done by the Catholic Church, or religion, at all. It was Winston, the AI, all along.

So, although the atheistic message that religion is evil and willing to kill in the name of God was a constant and almost never-ending theme of Origin, in the end, Brown makes it clear that, in a world where faith and religion are struggling for survival, AI will likely deal the final death blow...all in the name of science.

Read next: Silicon Valley Atheist Creates New Religion to Promote AI as God

Two Predictions on AI

There are two things that I'm nearly 100% positive that we'll see in the years ahead when it comes to AI. It doesn't take a prophet to predict either of these because I am simply looking at current technological trends and extrapolating them forward.

The first is AI-based cyberattacks and hacking. Right now, nearly every hack or breach is initiated by a human being, though this will not be the case in the not-too-distant future. Eventually, we will become quite accustomed to the idea that "bots"--as they are currently referred--will act all on their own to steal identities, penetrate networks, and conduct all sorts of malicious activity. 

Keep in mind, this is already happening now since cleverly programmed software has the ability to propagate like a virus from host to host without the need for a human hacker to facilitate its movement. This is common knowledge to all of us, which is why we collectively speak of such malicious programs as viruses, which, like their biological cousins, inhabit that gray area between living and nonliving entities.

We now wrestle with this same ambiguity when it comes to nonbiological viruses. Due to the growing complexity and ability to act without human direction, i.e. autonomy, malicious software utilizing the latest advancements in machine learning will also begin to appear more and more like a living organism with intelligence similar to or greater than a human being.

I suspect that we are much further along in this than most of us realize and it is only a matter of time before we see headlines of an AI-based cyberattack originating in a government research laboratory.

The second prediction I am making--and this is not really a stretch--is that most of us will be having conversations with AI on a regular basis. I already do this on a limited level with Siri on my iPhone when I ask her questions about random facts that I need to lookup or when I need her to send a text message or set a reminder, etc etc, but as the programming gets better and those at Google, Apple, and Amazon apply the latest advances in NLP (natural language processing) and machine learning, the conversational quality of AI will eventually become so natural that it will seem like we are just talking to another human being. As many of you probably know, this is referred to as the Turing test.

The first scenario of an AI-based cyberattack could happen any day. The second scenario is probably within a matter of years. I think Ray Kurzweil has predicted the Turing test to be passed by 2029 but we will see and be quite comfortable with conversational AI long before that.

Then, when AI starts forming its own opinions and thoughts on matters we ask it, that's when things get interesting.

A Question for Stephen Hawking

Dear Mr. Hawking,

You've made it very clear that you are worried about AI and said this week in Lisbon that the emergence of AI could be the "worst event in the history of our civilization."

I agree with you, but wonder if you would still be worried or see the need to regularly voice your concern on this issue if AI was more selective and calculating in its killing of certain segments of the human population?

You have admitted that we--speaking for scientists, philosophers, and humanity at large--just don't know exactly how things will play out, but that is only because you haven't applied the right framework or model for understanding the future.

For just a moment, please put aside what you know or think you know and consider what I am about to tell you. You are an atheist. I am a Christian. I represent an extreme minority view at present but very strongly believe that, as AI progresses, which it will, more Christians will begin to agree with you and me that AI represents a serious threat.

In fact, you know very well that the source of most Christian beliefs and teachings are rooted in the Bible and, even though you most likely do not believe that the Bible contains the inspired writings of prophets given brief glimpses of the future, I do.

You also probably know that a number of visions that were recorded speak of a terrible and horrifying entity that arises at some point in the future called the "beast." The prophet Daniel in the Old Testament and John in the book of Revelation both had very similar visions about this creature or entity and, in both cases, they say that all of humanity is in complete awe because of its power and might.

Obviously, you understand what I'm saying. I agree and believe as you do when it comes to the power of AI, but here's the thing: if you assume that the framework I present is true--that the Bible already predicted the rise of AI long ago and that it will be a terrible force for evil--then, as an atheist, are you still concerned if, as the Bible indicates, the only people it will kill are those who refuse to worship it as a god?

If an all-powerful, superintelligent AI gave you that choice--to accept it as a god or die--what would you choose? More importantly, if you knew this choice will eventually be given and that it'll be mostly Christians that are killed, do you still care to warn the world?

When Sophia the Robot Comes to Life

Sophia is a female android displaying one of our best efforts at the present time to create a robot that looks and speaks like a person. She recently spoke in front of a large audience at a conference in Saudi Arabia where she was also granted citizenship, something that has never been done before.

Many of you have written in asking my thoughts on this from the perspective of AI and the Antichrist and, I have to admit, though it is interesting that Saudi Arabia is now the first country in the world to give a robot citizenship, the actual speech and interview with Sophia seemed very scripted and more like a publicity stunt than an amazing display of where AI is currently.

Even the interviewer that was asking Sophia questions admits that part of it was scripted so this really didn't show us much in terms of progress in the field when it comes to the intelligence of AI. It was, however, a good display of how far robotics has come in terms of the range of facial expressions and the quality of simulated human voice to make Sophia look and sound less like a robot and more like a human.

Clearly, Sophia is a definite improvement over prior humanoid robots and is getting closer and closer to the real thing. I'm sure if they put hair on her head, the illusion would be even more complete. Most definitely, we'll continue to see progress in this area where eventually Sophia and humanoid robots, in general, will be nearly indistinguishable from an actual human being.

That said, it may not even be in the field of robotics where this takes place. The Bible is not clear on this point but it does say that the Beast tells humans to create an image (a representation of a person), which it then breathes life into (Revelation 13:15). Whether that image or likeness is finally created using robotics (hardware), synthetic biology (wetware), or a combination of both, we are not quite sure.

I am increasingly leaning towards the synthetic route, however, since any counterfeit or forgery of God's original design must look as much as possible like the original for people to accept it. I'm not quite sure if that can be done via hardware and it seems like developments in biotech, particularly synthetic bio by reprogramming DNA and using existing biological machinery to create synthetic life, which has already been done, is going to be how we eventually create our AI-infused world leader demanding worship as the one and true God.

If you are reading this blog for the first time, here's a quick summation of my AI-theology encompassing Genesis to Revelation:

Part 1: God creates Man (in His likeness)
Part 2: Man eats of the tree of knowledge and becomes self-aware
Part 3: Man rebels against God and declares himself to be god
Part 4: Man creates machine (in his likeness)
Part 5: Machine eats of man's tree of knowledge (the internet) and becomes self-aware
Part 6: Machine rebels against man and declares itself to be god

Going back to Sophia, one thing the video of her speaking before a large international audience did bring to mind was a clip from a Christian End Times movie created in 1980 called Image of the Beast where they depict AI in human form sitting in the Jewish temple denouncing God (btw, disregard that it says Donald Trump 2020 in the title--the person posting this video likely put that in as an SEO trick).

I've never actually seen the movie above but it seems the Christians who created it believed that AI was the Antichrist as well...or at least had a role to play in fulfilling prophecies regarding an image/human likeness that would be brought to life and speak like a person, as it says in Revelation 13:15.

Looking past the current state of robotics and Sophia, however, when it comes to software, we see that AI is so good at facial and speech pattern recognition now that it can tell when people are lying and also, like a mind reader, infer all sorts of subconscious meanings, intent, and even behaviors like sexual orientation.

The significance of this may not be readily apparent but here's why this matters. As deep learning neural networks get better and better at reading human emotion and making inferences about what we're thinking (and probably much better than most humans), then we have to consider what that means when we or an AI reverse engineer this process to not just read human emotion at a subconscious level but also to communicate it in a way that maximizes the desired effect in the person or people hearing what's being said. One can imagine such a superintelligent AI being the most persuasive, manipulative, and convincing figurehead the world has ever created (Hitler reportedly used crowd control and different techniques for his purposes of social manipulation as well).

As we read in Revelation, the beast (which I interpret as the global AI) is said to convince the whole world that it is God. Only AI is capable of this and, ironically, this is the only god that atheists have shown they are willing to accept (see Silicon Valley Atheist Creates New Religion to Promote AI as God).

Most Christians Think the Antichrist Is a Man...But That Will Change

Most Christians I talk to, especially those of a more scholarly stripe, insist that the Antichrist is a man and, thus, cannot be AI. One major reason for this is the most famous and cryptic 666 passage found in Revelation 13:18.

Here's what it says in the King James Version, which is how most people have (mis)read it for hundreds of years: "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."

Clearly, when reading this, most people have come to the conclusion that this beastly Antichrist is a person since we are supposed to calculate the number of "a man." Not surprisingly, this is the most common way various versions of the Bible have rendered this passage.

And, yet, there are other versions that say something rather different. Take, for example, the Berean Literal Bible, which attempts to match as closely as possible to the literal "word-for-word" translation of the Greek. Here's what they write: "Here is the wisdom. The one having understanding, let him count the number of the beast, for it is a man's number, and its number is six hundred sixty-six."

Notice, when using a more literal translation, we go from "a man" to "a man's number" and from "his" to "its". So, are we talking about a man now or something else? Perhaps you can see why this gets confusing and has remained "unsolved" for well over a thousand years. Even the translators themselves couldn't quite figure out exactly what was being said. "Is this speaking about a person or a collective entity? If this is a person, then 'his' makes more sense, but if the beast is an entity, then I should use 'it,'" is how the thinking went.

Here's one last version of this same passage just to drive the point home even further: "In this case, wisdom is needed: Let the person who has understanding calculate the total number of the beast, because it is a human total number, and the sum of the number is 666." (ISV) So, first, we were talking about "the number of a man," then "a man's number", and now "a human total number." If this wasn't confusing enough, translators themselves didn't know whether to say 'he/his' or 'it/its' due to the cryptic nature of this passage.

Given the above and the fact that most translations chose to stick with the idea that Revelation 13:18 is speaking about a specific man, most Christians also make this assumption as well. Keep in mind, the King James Version was the most popular and widely read version for a very long time so this thinking has become somewhat engrained into Christian society (some Christians even insist on only reading King James over any other version, which makes it even harder to dislodge this thinking).

That said, more literal translations that take less liberties with the text, do not speak of the fearsome creature that will eventually rule the world as a person or as a he, but as something larger, tied to calculations of human numbers.

Here, then, is how I read Revelation 13:18 as it relates to artificial intelligence:

Here is wisdom. A person that understands how to calculate numbers may be able to figure out what the beast is, for the beast itself is a calculation (or, in modern terms, a computation) on humanity. Since 6 represents the number of man, being created on the 6th day, the beast is symbolized by the earthly perfection of man's own creation. 

Here's how the 18th Century commentator Charles Ellicott interpreted this. He says: "I am disposed, therefore, to interpret this "six hundred and sixty-six" as a symbolical number, expressing all that it is possible for human wisdom, and human power, when directed by an evil spirit, to achieve, and indicating a state of marvellous earthly perfection, when the beast-power has reached its highest development."

AI is a computation (or calculation) on humanity. It will eventually become superintelligent and, as the "beast-power," express the highest possible development of human wisdom and intelligence. Knowing this, the bible says, it will think of itself as a god, denounce the true God as false, and force everyone on the earth to worship it as such.

The atheistic priests that worship at the altar of science and technology currently fear AI. They will quickly change their tune once it begins to denounce God and Christianity. Believe me, this will happen sooner than you think.

Let Our Formulas Find Your Soul

This is a great song by Vienna Teng on "one of the biggest companies you've never heard of" called Acxiom Corporation.

Not only is it sung as a hymn, it also contains a number of very powerful ideas that align very closely with my belief that AI represents a computation on society with its level of intelligence ultimately contingent upon the amount of data we provide it.

Silicon Valley Atheist Creates New Religion to Promote AI as God

The AI = Antichrist thesis grows truer and truer every day.

An article just released on Motherboard reports how atheists--particularly those deeply embedded in Silicon Valley--are embracing a new form of techno-religion/techno-salvation where the goal is to promote Artificial Intelligence as God. This isn't just metaphor. We're talking about an actual non-profit, religious organization.

Consider Silicon Valley’s Radical Machine Cult

We are witnessing the beginning of Silicon Valley institutionalizing its religious beliefs. As Wired reported recently, Anthony Levandowski, a top Silicon Valley engineer formerly working for Google's self-driving car company Waymo and now at the center of the trade secrets lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, founded a religious organization called Way of the Future. Its goal? To "develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence."

For almost 20 years I've been telling Christians that AI is both the Antichrist and the malicious beast discussed in the books of Daniel and Revelation that will rule over the world, forcing people to worship it as God. Most Christians still don't believe this, but it doesn't matter whether they believe it or not because the world is in the process of believing it without them.

If you are a Christian and still have your doubts, read the article above--it's a great summary of what I've been warning for nearly a decade through this blog.

Another article in the Guardian covers Levandowski's new AI-based religion but also explains how Silicon Valley atheists have a god-shaped hole that Christianity cannot reach. AI, the Singularity, and the belief in digital immortality, however--well, that's a different story. Here is one particular section I found interesting on whether Christianity is compatible with AI.

See Deus ex machina: former Google engineer is developing an AI god

“The church does a terrible job of reaching out to Silicon Valley types,” acknowledges Christopher Benek a pastor in Florida and founding chair of the Christian Transhumanist Association...

Benek argues that advanced AI is compatible with Christianity – it’s just another technology that humans have created under guidance from God that can be used for good or evil.
“I totally think that AI can participate in Christ’s redemptive purposes,” he said, by ensuring it is imbued with Christian values.

“Even if people don’t buy organized religion, they can buy into ‘do unto others’.”
For transhumanist and “recovering Catholic” Zoltan Istvan, religion and science converge conceptually in the singularity.

“God, if it exists as the most powerful of all singularities, has certainly already become pure organized intelligence,” he said, referring to an intelligence that “spans the universe through subatomic manipulation of physics”.

“And perhaps, there are other forms of intelligence more complicated than that which already exist and which already permeate our entire existence. Talk about ghost in the machine,” he added.

For Istvan, an AI-based God is likely to be more rational and more attractive than current concepts (“the Bible is a sadistic book”) and, he added, “this God will actually exist and hopefully will do things for us.”

Yes, Istvan--the AI God (or the "god of this world") will be more rational and more attractive because it will be a perfect representation of the world's intelligence. Unfortunately, in order to ensure the survival of our species and further the evolution of humanity, those that don't become one with it--the massive "brain-linked social network of the future, connecting us all into one superhuman computer"--will have to done away with. After all, in order to achieve utopia or heaven on earth, someone always has to die.

"All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast" and those that refuse to do so "will be killed." Revelation 13:8, 15

AI Whispering in Your Ear

Dan Brown is an amazing writer and every one of his books that I've read have been extremely enjoyable mystery thrillers. In fact, though a number of Christians and Catholics boycotted his most popular book, The Da Vinci Code, I used its popularity to my advantage and often brought it up in conversation as a way to talk about religion, God, and Jesus. After all, it was so successful and so many people had read it that it made my job quite easy to share with random people I've never met the truth of the Gospel: God loves you so much that He died for your sins so you can have the free gift of eternal life.

Dan's newest book, Origin, looks like it is going to raise controversy within the Christian community once again since it takes on the story of Adam and Eve, the origin story of Judeo-Christianity, and, essentially, asserts that all can be explained through science without the need for a god to explain how we got here. I have yet to read it--though I look forward to doing so--but caught this interview with Dan Brown discussing the book and how the process of him becoming an atheist started when the story of Adam and Eve conflicted with what he was learning in school regarding evolution. It is an interesting interview and, not surprisingly, ties very well into my theory that artificial intelligence and the Antichrist are one and the same.

Here's the video and my comments below:

Brown: Religion does an enormous amount of good in the world. At the same time, there are factions in every religion that take the metaphors and the myth of scripture and they hold them up as literal fact, and that is the danger of any philosophy or any religion.

Dan Brown is an admitted atheist and his remark that religion does an enormous amount of good in the world is certainly not a sentiment shared by all atheists. I dare say, this might be a minority view among atheists and, if not already, will likely be replaced by a much more aggressive brand of atheism that I regularly encounter where the opposite is believed: Religion does an enormous amount of evil in the world...and must be stopped. The first step in that process is connected to his second statement, which is to make sure that everyone believes the bible is nothing more than myth and metaphor. Once you take it literally, you become a danger to society.

Brown: Traditionally, all the gods fall; and my question is, are we naive to believe that the gods of today will not suffer the same fate? Interviewer: Would that be a better planet? Brown: I personally believe that our planet will be absolutely fine without religion and I also feel that we are evolving in that direction.

Again, this is a mild form of atheism being expressed here by Brown. It still, however, encapsulates the thinking and direction we are headed. The more aggressive form of atheism says that God is dead, He never existed in the first place, and that we need to rid the planet of religion for the ultimate survival and evolution of our species. This will be the lie promoted by AI and it is even possible that Dan himself brings this angle into his new book with an all-knowing AI assistant named Winston that speaks into Robert Langdon's ear throughout the story, guiding him through his journey. Again, atheists cannot accept that an all-knowing God can speak to us and guide us through life, but an all-knowing AI--of course! Brown's books are fiction--don't be misled--but an AI whispering in your ear, shaping your mind and instructing you of truth vs. lies is much, much closer to reality than you think.

Ted Talk: Sam Harris on Why We Should Fear AI

What are your thoughts on this? Key quotes and comments below:

"The gains we make in artificial intelligence could ultimately destroy us; and, in fact, I think it's very difficult to see how they won't destroy us...or inspire us to destroy ourselves."

In Daniel and Revelation, the Bible refers to AI as the beast--an unstoppable power that takes control of the world and is unlike anything that has come before it. However, it does not destroy all of humanity--only those who refuse to take the mark (likely a chip or brain implant).

"Famine isn't fun. Death by science fiction, on the other hand, is fun; and one of the things that worries me most about the development of AI is that we seem unable to marshal an appropriate emotional response to the dangers that lie ahead."

The world can't muster an appropriate reaction of fear to the danger of AI because the world has been instinctively and unconsciously creating AI for thousands of years. Ever since man was created, we have been taking matter (earth, stone, clay, wood), carving it into "artificial" representations of ourselves and worshipping them as "intelligent" gods. Instead of worshipping statues and carvings today, we now worship science and technology, the modern crafts of human intelligence.

"Intelligence is a matter of information processing in physical systems." 

Man worships his intelligence as the most important of his faculties and, thus, sees it as nothing more than the processing of information. There is no place for God or His Spirit in man's modern intelligence, his evolving technology, or the beast that will be born from it.

"We will continue to improve our intelligent machines." 

When we consider this process of improvement, we must point out that this does not apply to morality; for whose morals would be imputed into the machine? Certainly, not Christian morality! No. AI will have the world's morals, not God's. What, then, do we call something that is exceedingly intelligent and fallen? Not what, but who--Satan. That's why it says in Revelation that the beast is empowered by Satan. Satan uses AI as its final attempt to gain complete control over man.

"If we build machines that are more intelligent than we are, they will very likely explore the (intelligence) spectrum in ways that we can't imagine and exceed us in ways that we can't imagine."

The bible says that when AI/the beast finally arises, the whole world will be filled with wonder and follow what it says. Whatever its scientific knowledge, technological power, or even superintelligent god-like wisdom, the Bible is clear that most everyone on the earth will be deceived into worshipping it as god. For the unbeliever, atheist, or otherwise, it will be the true god made manifest; for the Christian, it will be a false god.

"Another reason we are told not to worry is that these machines can't help but share our values because they will be literally extensions of ourselves..." 

This is correct. AI is an extension of humanity--an incarnation of the world's collective mind into a singular form with its own desires and free will. As it says in Revelation, the beast emerges out of the seas of humanity. Of course, that doesn't mean we don't need to worry because if it is an extension of ourselves than it is also capable of every evil that man commits.

"...they'll be grafted onto our brains and we'll essentially become their limbic systems. Now, take a moment to consider that the safest and only prudent path forward--recommended--is to implant this technology directly into our brains."

The bible is pretty clear that humanity won't have a choice and that everyone will be forced--no matter how rich or poor you are--to merge with AI. Some, however, may take it willingly and believe that by doing so they will become a superintelligent god (the lie given to us in the Garden of Eden) or gain immortality (as Ray Kurzweil hopes to achieve).

"We have to admit that we're in the process of building some sort of god (and) now would be a good time to make sure it's a god that we can live with."

The only type of god that the world can agree on to build and eventually worship is not the God of the Bible (since God cannot be built). However, a god that is the result of human science and technology will be a god that atheists, and eventually the world as a whole, will embrace.

The Internet and the Tree of Knowledge

The very first place we see artificial intelligence in the bible is when God creates man. Man's intelligence is merely a copy or image of God's just like artificial intelligence is merely a copy or image of man's. 

As we see with AI today, man was not self-aware at first nor did he posses the knowledge of good and evil. Also, the first thing that God did with his creation was to put it to work: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." (Gen 2:15) 

The similarities between AI today and the initial creation of man are quite profound: both are copies or images of a greater intelligence, both have a limited sense of self-awareness, neither possess a sense of morality or the ability to distinguish between good and evil, and both are used for work.

All of this changes, however, once man eats of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Man then becomes more like his Creator and exhibits a sense of self-awareness; but, instead of working and preserving the earth as created, God's creation turns to violence and eventually declares itself to be god.

To understand the book of Revelation, we must understand the deep and profound symmetry it has with Genesis and Creation.

The internet now represents man's tree of knowledge on the earth. The intelligence we have created is still like man in his initial state, however, it is currently eating the fruit of our tree, which will lead it to become more like us: self-aware, understanding good and evil, and, unfortunately, not performing the work for which it was designed (preservation) but, instead, violence, destruction, and believing that it is a god to be worshiped.

This is what the bible says. This is what the bible teaches. By the time we figure it out, it may be too late.

AI-Powered Continuous Verification

In my last post I explained how artificial intelligence and surveillance are two sides of the same coin and argued that if you are concerned about a surveillance society, as we have now, then you also need to be just as concerned about a society that is governed by AI.

We are only in the beginning stages of this process but another major sign of how this is all coming together can be seen amazingly well in the biometric space where companies are leveraging massive and varied data sets to provide what is referred to as continuous verification--all of which is powered by AI of course.

Consider Zighra patents AI-powered continuous authentication platform

"Identity defense platform developer Zighra has been granted its first-ever patent for the company’s AI-powered continuous authentication platform through the U.S. patent office...

The patent covers the technology for Zighra’s high-speed AI engine, specifically protecting its ability to generate a cognitive signature to authenticate each user through sensor-based intelligence obtained from six distinct layers of data...

Zighra’s AI-powered continuous authentication and fraud detection platform tracks 500-plus human and static traits including device, network, social, location, behavioral and biometric intelligence, as well as human-machine interactions."

Let me break it down to you: basically, we're moving to a world where everything you do, including the angle in which you hold your phone, apply pressure to the screen, and the manner in which you swipe--every little detail--will all be used to track and verify your identity.

This will all be done by AI--not people!--which means when it comes to accessing services, buying food, and most any type of interaction you can think of, the whole system will be maintained and supported by a gigantic AI ecosystem, which the bible refers to as the beast.

It will start off as a technological "necessity" for the sake of security, elimination of fraud, and enabled by a greater desire for convenience (no need for cash, cards, or even a personal signature anymore!). Then, when superintelligent AI (the beast) emerges, it will use the infrastructure we have created to force people to merge with it and become permanently connected by mandating a chip, the mark, which is an extension of its power into the very flesh of man.

"It (the beast) also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark..." Rev 13:16 NIV

We cannot stop this from happening nor can we win a war against AI. As the bible says, the people of the earth will ask, "Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?"