The Unknown Future of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the attempt to create humanlike intelligence in machines. Programmers input vast amounts of data into computer software. The software learns from it and produces outputs, then learns from those outputs and subsequent data, in an ever improving cycle. This field has made gigantic leaps in recent years. Now, in many cases, the programmers themselves are shocked at the apparent knowledge, reason and even emotion this type of software can display.

The programmers admit that even they don’t understand it! They talk about a “black box” so dark and complex that their attempts to illuminate the processes have failed.

“The revolution in artificial intelligence is the center of a debate ranging from those who hope it will save humanity to those who predict doom,” 60 Minutes noted last April. Every major technological advancement has sparked similar hopes and doomsday predictions. But there is something unique about this one.

There are few things in this world as dark or as hard to understand as those technologies involving artificial intelligence. But Daniel 8 prophesies an end-time leader who will understand “dark sentences.” I believe God is now revealing what these “dark sentences” are about.

Manipulating artificial intelligence is a powerful way to manipulate the minds of the masses. It also opens new possibilities in advanced warfare. Whoever understands this technology has a significant advantage in this world. It seems certain that some will exploit the dark side of AI. I believe we can know who these individuals are.

The Dark Side of AI

Google ceo Sundar Pichai told 60 Minutes, “AI will be as good or as evil as human nature allows” (emphasis mine throughout). If you understand anything about human nature, which these men do not, you know that this is a frightening development.

These AI programs are being fed untold amounts of data and are being trained to improve using the inputs of millions of users worldwide. Talking about Google’s AI bot Bard, 60 Minutes said that it appears to contain “the sum of human knowledge.” But human knowledge is a mixed blessing, and often it proves to be a curse. How much of human knowledge is true? How much has been built on a faulty foundation? Human knowledge has proliferated madly in the past century—and it has brought us to the brink of human annihilation!

One of the big problems they are facing with AI is what they call “hallucination,” when the AI just makes things up. It fabricates “facts” and makes them appear real. 60 Minutes called it a “very human trait: error with confidence.” They asked Pichai if this was a solvable problem. He couldn’t answer.

The Washington Post wrote about this same issue on Dec. 27, 2023: “No one knows definitively why large language models hallucinate ….” That article encouraged readers to embrace these errors, just as society embraces human flaws! What twisted thinking! AI cannot distinguish truth from lies. How could it, if its human inventors can’t either?

But there is something perplexing about artificial intelligence that is different from all preceding technology.

Over time, Google’s AI exhibited skills that its programmers didn’t know about. They call this phenomenon “emergent properties.” For example, through just a few prompts of users, Bard learned another language. The programmers didn’t know it was doing that; they didn’t even know it was possible. That’s one reason people warn against expanding the AI programs: They can get so complex that their human designers don’t understand what is going on!

Pichai admitted that researchers don’t “fully understand” this phenomenon, calling it a “black box.” 60 Minutes asked: “You don’t fully understand how it works, and yet you’ve turned it loose on society?” Pichai replied: “Let me put it this way: I don’t think we fully understand how a human mind works either.”

How true! People don’t understand the human mind! How can they understand something like that? We ought to be getting some help from God!

Pichai was asked if Google’s AI program is safe for society. He hesitated and said yes, if we are “responsible.” Does anybody really think mankind will use this technology responsibly? What other technology have we used responsibly?

Because of the tremendous computing power required for AI, only a few corporations can truly explore it deeply. Google, for example. Then they begin to feed these programs data and they actually begin to, as they view it, “know” a lot more than men, and they don’t know themselves how to control it.

They also combine artificial intelligence with robotics and have robots do all kinds of things a human being would never need to do. People warn about this as well, especially when it comes to using AI for military purposes.

In “How to Combat the Dark Side of AI,” Forbes described the military ramifications of out-of-control AI systems: “Rogue armies of drone wasps run amok in search of deviants to poison and kill, unmanned tanks obliterate anything moving on the streets, and sophisticated digital twin satellites successfully cripple our electric power grid system with advanced emp [electromagnetic pulse] attacks” (Feb. 28, 2020).

Elon Musk says this could very well destroy civilization, because they don’t really understand it! Yet the technology keeps advancing.

The Hidden AI Czars

“With future technological possibilities, especially artificial intelligence, the boundaries between fiction and truth could blur even further,” Germany’s former defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, posted on LinkedIn on Sept. 3, 2023.

Former United States President Barack Obama gave a similar warning about the distortion or blurring of truth in a speech in April 2022: “No one tells us that the window is blurred, subject to unseen distortions and subtle manipulations. All we see is a constant feed of content where useful factual information and happy diversions, and cat videos, flow alongside lies; conspiracy theories; junk science; quackery; white supremacist, racist tracts; misogynist screeds. And over time, we lose our capacity to distinguish between fact, opinion and wholesale fiction. Or maybe we just stop caring. … If we do nothing, I am convinced the trends that we’re seeing will get worse. … [W]ith the emergence of AI, disinformation will grow more sophisticated.”

On the surface these two men have little in common. But both of them are not only supporting regulations on AI but also promoting these technologies. Why is this important to watch?

The Prophet Daniel wrote a prophecy with enormous implications for our day. I write about it in detail in my book America Under Attack (request your free copy). Most Bible commentaries agree that the prophecy in Daniel 8 refers to Antiochus iv Epiphanes of the Seleucid Empire in the second century b.c. Yet the book of Daniel is only for the “time of the end” (Daniel 12:4, 9). The ancient Antiochus did terrible damage, but he was only a prophetic forerunner of men who would fulfill this prophecy in the end time.

In my book, I identify one of these men as Barack Obama. This man has wreaked terrible destruction on the United States. You need to understand this truth, which explains the hidden spiritual dimension of the attack on America today.

The main end-time fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy will occur in Europe. According to prophecy, a leader there will hijack the European unification project and lead a multi-nation alliance into world war! You can read about this in our free book The Holy Roman Empire in Prophecy.

I have believed for many years now that Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg may fulfill this role of the strongman of Europe.

The life of the ancient Antiochus shows that he had an abnormal interest in technology. Polybius’s Histories relates that Antiochus often wandered in the city streets, “holding forth at length and discussing technical matters with the molders and other craftsmen.” The men fulfilling the roles of the modern Antiochus have similar interests in much more modern technologies.

Daniel 8:23 reads: “And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.” The expression “dark sentences” comes from the word haidah, which means riddle, difficult, question, parable (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament). I believe this expression could also mean difficult technology. Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon defines “dark sentences” as “twisted, involved, subtlety, … fraud, … enigma.” To many today, AI is such an enigma.

Let’s look more closely at the technology-related activities of these two men on the world scene today.

Obama and AI Disinformation

On Oct. 30, 2023, the Biden administration unveiled a sweeping executive order on the “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development of Artificial Intelligence.” These leaders are using executive power to shape how private industry develops AI tools, how the government will use it, and how to tell what is real from what is fake.

Yet the most important part of the executive order was hidden. These groundbreaking and sweeping regulations were not inspired by Joe Biden or anyone in the White House. nbc News reported: “Former President Barack Obama quietly advised the White House over the past five months on its strategy to address artificial intelligence, engaging behind the scenes with tech companies and holding Zoom meetings with top West Wing aides at President Joe Biden’s request, according to aides to both men” (Nov. 3, 2023). Consequently, Bloomberg had an article headlined “Obama Is the AI Czar We Need for Global Cooperation.”

Mr. Obama has a history of using new technologies for his advantage. In that April 2022 speech, he said: “I might never have been elected president if it hadn’t been for websites like—and I’m dating myself—MySpace, MeetUp and Facebook who allowed an army of young volunteers to organize, raise money, spread our message. That’s what elected me.”

Mr. Obama also used this apparatus to overthrow Middle Eastern governments during the Arab Spring, to control domestic policy during the covid-19 pandemic, and to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. (I explain more about all this in America Under Attack.)

Obama also increased the number of drone strikes 10-fold compared to the previous administration. He used technology to make life-and-death decisions regarding individuals and governments.

AI is technology that promises to grow such power to dangerous heights.

In that speech he also said, “You just have to flood a country’s public square with enough raw sewage. You just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt, plant enough conspiracy theorizing that citizens no longer know what to believe. Once they lose trust in their leaders, in mainstream media, in political institutions, in each other, in the possibility of truth, the game’s won.” AI is making this more possible than ever. Obama is warning about others abusing this power, when in truth this is exactly what he has done and is doing.

Barack Obama has worked for years to control the Internet. He now wants to control AI. “Without some standards, implications of this technology, for our elections, for our legal system, for our democracy, for rules of evidence, for our entire social order are frightening and profound,” he said. The truth is, he wants to control this power—not to protect people but for his own political purposes.

In his speech, Obama also praised Europe’s regulatory system and emphasized the need for regulatory cooperation. He stated: “It is a chance for all of us to fight for truth—not absolute truth, not a fixed truth, but to fight for what, deep down, we know is more true, is right.”

Think about this: This man spread lies about Donald Trump being a Russian agent, about the 2020 election being secure, about the vaccines being safe, about Jan. 6, 2021, being an insurrection, and so much more. To him, “absolute truths” don’t matter—what matters is what you feel is more true “deep down”! Is he really one to be lecturing us about trying to prevent truth from being blurred with lies?

There is absolute truth, fixed truth. Only God can define what is truth and what is error. When individuals try to define fact and fiction, there is a diabolical spirit behind their actions.

I have drawn attention before to the Apostle Paul’s warning: “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels [demons], intruding into those things which he [has] seen [that is the correct translation], vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind …. Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship …” (Colossians 2:18, 23). Paul reveals what happens when you worship the human will: It leads to worshiping demons! That is because the human mind is vulnerable to the broadcasting, deception and influence of “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,” Satan the devil (Ephesians 2:2).

When you hear Barack Obama trying to enforce regulations on communication and technology aimed at “fighting for truth”—meaning whatever he says is truth—look out!

This former president has already weaponized much of America’s security apparatus—federal intelligence and law enforcement. Now he is working to increase his power using AI.

Notice this deceptive statement from the Department of Homeland Security: “dhs will not use AI to improperly profile, target or to discriminate against any individual, or entity, based on the individual characteristics identified above, as reprisal or solely because of exercising their constitutional rights. dhs will not use AI technology to enable improper systemic, indiscriminate or large-scale monitoring, surveillance or tracking of individuals” (Aug. 8, 2023). Read that carefully. The word “improper” implies that they are using it to do all the above at their own discretion—or rather at Mr. Obama’s discretion!

As I wrote last month, prophecy shows that somehow God is going to curb this man’s power. His influence is going to decline.

But as that happens, I believe the second man, in Europe, will take center stage.

Guttenberg and AI in the Military

Baron Guttenberg is investing in various AI start-ups and for four years has been an advisory board member of asapp, an artificial intelligence business. He frequently lectures ceos about the geopolitical ramifications of technological developments. He also praised European Union regulations of these technologies. Behind the scenes, he may well be one of the leaders responsible for formulating and implementing those regulations.

Like Obama, Guttenberg wants to control information. But he is perhaps even more deeply involved with AI than Obama is, especially in its industrial and military applications.

Guttenberg is following in the footsteps of Bavarian leaders Edmund Stoiber and Franz Josef Strauss, who harnessed high-tech industry. Strauss and Stoiber helped make Bavaria the high-tech economic powerhouse that it is today. What if Guttenberg enhances this industrial power with artificial intelligence?

“Artificial intelligence is still something Europe could shape,” he noted in a television interview with Puls 4-Talk on July 28, 2019. “We have a well-established industry, which still has to become far more connected to the new technologies. But once this happens, it will develop a totally different field of power than a purely technological or digitalization firm.” The European Commission is advocating the same: Its Dec. 13, 2023, policy brief discusses using AI to enhance science and innovation.

In the last few years, Guttenberg has attended summit talks held by Atos, a global leader in digital transformation. He was invited by former Austrian Chancellor Dr. Alfred Gusenbauer. We need to pay close attention to these activities. While Atos is involved in the civil industry, it also provides groundbreaking services for the military.

Atos’s “Connected Defense: Vision for 2020,” notes, “Today defense is facing a new world of tension: Conflicts are on the rise, and information dominance is key. … Atos’s 40 years of experience in electronic warfare, its airborne and naval equipment, its intelligence and battle management know-how has led to a natural growth of expertise, and these solutions are among the most advanced on the market.” The goal is to make the soldier “do something that was previously not possible.”

The German Bundeswehr hired esg and Atos to digitize the German armed forces and improve its command-and-control information systems. Could artificial intelligence help the German military leap ahead? And if so, could Guttenberg be part of that? Is he already involved?

It is becoming increasingly critical for forces to use faster communication and coordination on the battlefield in order to deploy and defend against increasingly advanced weapons. In 2019, the German military, France’s Atos Information Technology and Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems began creating a real-time 3-D picture for coordinating drones and combat vehicles.

Germany’s Luftwaffe is experimenting with drone swarms and investing in artificial intelligence solutions for controlling German drones and destroying enemy drones. They are employing well-established multinational corporations like Airbus and Hensoldt, and also start-ups like GhostPlay and 21strategies.

This means they are working to overcome the Cold War-era “mutually assured destruction” premise that for many years prevented a nuclear World War iii!

Future wars most certainly will include nuclear bombs and biological weapons. These deadly weapons can be mounted on aircraft and drones and sent all over the world. Imagine what they could do! covid-19 was a mild biological weapon compared to something they might send in one of those drones. Some analysts are warning that artificial intelligence can be used to develop bioweapons that target only specific ethnicities. We know only a fraction of the weaponry being developed in secret.

How will America fare in such a future war? Prophecy shows that these other nations—including Germany, Russia, China, even Iran—are going to use these weapons to devastating effect.

Ezekiel 7:14 paints an alarming scenario: “They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle: for my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.” This is a prophecy about modern-day “Israel,” which is the prophetic term for the United States and Britain (request a free copy of Herbert W. Armstrong’s book The United States and Britain in Prophecy). These nations are going to be attacked, and they will call for war, but nobody will go to the battle! They rely on advanced technology, but apparently the enemy will hack and knock out their technology!

Notice: God says He allows this to happen because of His wrath! He is wrathful toward our nations. That is why we are seeing all these developments. No matter how much America is investing in its military, it won’t matter because God is against our nation unless we repent!

A prophecy in Revelation 9 describes the military equipment used in this warfare as swarms of locusts. Could these locusts be swarms of various aircraft coordinating their flight patterns through AI?

America will be blindsided by German military technology. The Germans are moving fast, and in some ways they are already ahead of America. What we see in the news is only a fraction of what is going on behind the scenes, I am sure. Winston Churchill warned, “Beware! Germany is a country fertile in military surprises.” The Bible warns that the biggest surprises are yet ahead!

Dark Sentences and Warfare

The prophecy in Daniel 8 about “a king of fierce countenance” and understanding “dark sentences” continues: “And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people” (verse 24). Where will this man’s real power come from? The expression “not by his own power” shows that he will be empowered by the devil!

AI is not the danger. It is this spiritual force we need to be concerned about!

Let’s not forget that it is God’s wrath that is coming over our nations! Revelation 17:17 shows that He has put it in the hearts of these leaders to do His will. God will bring this destruction to lead our world to repentance!

But after unknowingly fulfilling God’s will, this king, inspired by the devil, will seek to fight God! “And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand” (Daniel 8:25). Somehow his mind gets so twisted that he believes he stands a chance in fighting the one who created the universe and all mankind! That is the same kind of thinking Satan exhibited when he tried to overthrow God (Isaiah 14:11-15; Ezekiel 28:16-17; Revelation 12:7-9). But his army will be crushed, and Satan will be banished.

Yes, thankfully, there is good news. When the glorified Jesus Christ returns, “These shall make war with the Lamb, and the lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings …” (Revelation 17:14). At last God will bring peace to our world (Zechariah 10:6, 10-11). Only He can do it!