TRANSCRIPT:
“A.I. is probably the most important thing humanity has ever worked on. I think of it as something more profound than electricity or fire.” ~ Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google
Like a thief in the night, artificial intelligence has thrust itself into our lives. It makes important decisions for us every day... many that we barely notice, if at all.
Simply put, artificial intelligence (A.I.) is the ability of a computer to perform tasks normally associated with humans, such as quickly identifying patterns, generalizing, and learning from past experience. There are three types of A.I., simple, strong, and artificial superintelligence (ASI). Experts say ASI could soon surpass the ability of the human brain... Think about HAL, the rogue supercomputer in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
A.I. can create short stories, news accounts, fake drawings and photos, musical compositions, and write computer code. The technology can be used to ethically identify criminals, predict tornados, or stop terrorist threats. But at the same time, A.I. is already being used to identify specific people and deny them their fundamental human rights. Countries like China, Russia, North Korea, and Egypt have deployed A.I. facial recognition systems to control political dissidents. Artificial intelligence has also made it easier for predators to sexually abuse children and more challenging for law enforcement agencies to identify the perpetrators.
A.I. is expanding at breakneck speed. In the past, computing power was predicted to double every two years. Now thanks to A.I., it’s doubling every 3 1/2 months. That’s 128 times faster than just a few years ago... and this rate will likely continue to grow exponentially in the near future.
Many people have already experienced AI-based ChatGPT as online customer service chat support. Others have gone to the OpenAI website for help writing a wedding toast or graduation speech. Some students have even used it to write school papers and falsely submit them as their own work.
Launched in November 2022, ChatGPT is expanding at a mind-numbing rate. It took Facebook a year to reach one million users... It took ChatGPT just five days to do the same. It then grew to over 100 million active users in just 60 days. In June 2023 alone, ChatGPT was used 1.8 billion times.
If something is so pervasive and grows globally in just a few short months, it begs the question... Is modern-day artificial intelligence mentioned in the Bible?
To answer that, let’s first look at the original “Ai” of the Bible. Ai was a Canaanite city in ancient Israel... its name means “heap of ruins” in Hebrew. In the Book of Joshua, chapters 7 and 8, the Israelites attempted to conquer Ai on two occasions. The first attempt failed because Achan disobeyed God’s direct orders not to take anything for personal profit. On the second, Joshua obeyed God’s direction, and the Israelites were victorious and later burned Ai to the ground. But, as biblically important as that victory was, it is not directly related to the topic of this post, except in one important sense, which we’ll cover at the end of this post.
Next, let’s look at Daniel 12:4...
But you, Daniel, roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.
Some believe this verse refers to artificial intelligence. Instead, it points to the 70th week in Daniel’s prophecy, representing the Great Tribulation of end times. The Hebrew verb form of “running two and fro” refers to the movement of a person actively searching for something during that time. But it is doubtful that this verse references modern technology, but rather a search by some to someday find the truth of God in the book of Daniel.
Then let’s consider Revelation 13:14-15...
14 Because of the signs it was given the power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15 The second beast was given the power to give breath to the image of the first beast so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.
Perhaps this passage brings us closer to the answer we are looking for...
Most people listening to this will have at least heard about the Antichrist... A false Christ that will arise just before the second coming of Jesus. (The first beast refers to the Antichrist, and the second to the false prophet mentioned in the Book of Revelation.)
The operative phrases in these verses are “to set up an image in honor of the beast” and “the power to give breath to the image of the first beast so that the image could speak”. Today, creating an image that actually speaks is not only possible; it is already being done...
Artificial intelligence can now put words into someone’s mouth by simply editing the transcript of a video and playing it back with different words. Watch this 18-second video and see how A.I. manipulates the mouth of the woman to cause her to say whatever they want with a few keystrokes.
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Who knows which version is true and even if she is a real human... and that’s the point.
Continuing along this path, let’s look at what Jesus said in Matthew 24:15...
“When you shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, who so reads, let him understand.”
To better understand this, we must take a closer look at what Jesus meant by the “abomination of desolation”.
To do that, let’s take a look at Daniel 11:31...
“And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength and they shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that makes desolate.”
In the Old Testament, the word “abomination” is used to describe things that are abhorrent to God. These included not only sexual sins but also images of false gods in the form of idols... in other words, a physical object of some sort. Notice that this verse contains the phrase “shall place the abomination that makes desolate.” Since it is “placed,” we can probably safely say that the “abomination” is a physical object.
That leaves us with the question... What is the image of the beast mentioned in Revelation 13:14-15? Could it be a computer that would monitor all human and economic activity, taking on a life of its own while rejecting the wisdom of God?
Compared to what was impossible until just two years ago, that idea doesn’t seem so off the wall anymore...
With out-of-control super artificial intelligence, we could arrive at a point in time known as the “Singularity,” a hypothetical future when the growth of A.I. eventually becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable threats we will not be able to anticipate fast enough... even by its creators.
We often have assumed that tomorrow will closely resemble today. Most people believe the century we live in now will see about the same rate of progress as the last one. Instead, based on what is happening with A.I., the coming decades will likely see technological progress two-hundred times more significant and impactful than we can imagine.
It will be difficult for us even to grasp the future capabilities of A.I. since it can already learn how to improve itself without human intervention. Even the developers of these tools admit they don’t know. They are often surprised by the full capabilities of A.I. Yet, they persist in building the very thing that could prove to be the abomination that makes desolate and hasten the eternal destruction of those who refuse to bow their knee to Almighty God.
As we head to such an uncertain future, where should we go from here?
Our hope is to be in Christ... not in artificial intelligence, idols, or the god of this age (Satan). We can find this hope not through the things of this world but in His Word... which tells us that no matter what trials or pain we may suffer here on this earth, we can always depend on the hope Christ extends to us.
We would do well to heed the lesson of the original “Ai”... That God will not be with us unless we turn our backs on whatever things are devoted to destruction and turn to Him. It is safe to say that artificial intelligence will soon be used to open a doorway to the occult. Judging from man’s past, we should not be surprised when that happens.
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(10 Min) Podcast: Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) Mentioned in the Bible?