Good morning!

In Philip Dick’s 1956 short story The Minority Report, law enforcement arrests people for “pre-crimes”—crimes they have not yet committed, based on psychic predictions. This dystopian concept is finding an unsettling parallel in China’s nonfiction surveillance ambitions.

Receive a free news briefing in your inbox each weekday—the Trumpet Brief.

Chinese firm Geedge Networks is developing artificial intelligence designed to predict individuals who will criticize the government before they voice any public dissent, according to a New York Times report.

• Leaked internal documents analyzed by Vanderbilt University researchers reveal efforts to create “political risk scores” using location data, Internet activity and behavioral patterns.
• The company already sells advanced censorship and monitoring tools. Now it wants to enable the regime to neutralize potential threats preemptively.

In China’s tightly controlled system, the Communist Party already uses AI tools like strict censorship, facial recognition and social credit mechanisms to suppress dissent. The conviction rate in Chinese courts exceeds 99 percent. But as the Times’ industry sources said, “[T]he use of AI to predict dissent well before a person has taken action has become a nightmare scenario.”

• This tool will enable a shift from punishing actions to policing thoughts and statistical probabilities. Citizens could face detention or career ruin not for what they have done but for what an algorithm suggests they might do.

“This is what happens when mass surveillance meets AI,” said Brett J. Goldstein, director of the Wicked Problems Lab at Vanderbilt’s Institute of National Security. “Without checks and balances, what China is doing to its own citizens is a preview of what becomes possible anywhere these tools go unchecked.”

AI offers authoritarian regimes tools to realize dreams of total societal control. AI doesn’t just watch: It can analyze and aim to predict human behavior at scale. It can turn oceans of personal data into actionable political risk profiles, true or false.

• George Orwell’s vision in 1984 is edging closer to probability: a world of omnipresent monitoring where even private thoughts can be criminalized.

Governments from Asia to Africa to Latin America could adopt similar tools. Geedge already exports conventional surveillance technology to countries like Myanmar and Pakistan.

• Even in democracies, the temptation exists: Intelligence agencies or overreaching administrations might justify “pre-crime” monitoring for national security, counterterrorism or social stability.

So much for innocent until proven guilty.

When you understand the difference between God’s form of government and the devil’s, you see hallmarks of the latter all over this initiative.

• God is all-powerful, yet He gave us free will and the formidable power of personal choice. Rather than coercion, He works to persuade us to voluntarily love Him, obey Him, and devote ourselves to Him.
• Satan seeks raw power. He wants to control thoughts through bullying, intimidation and force. He strips people of personal responsibility and turns them into drones and wards of the state.

The devil’s influence is growing. Modern technology is enabling him to tighten his grip on humanity. Soon, though, his rule will be replaced by a godly government that will foster unparalleled personal freedom rooted in a perfect law.

Trump Reportedly Berates Netanyahu in Profanity-Laced Call

The United States is muzzling Israel to appease Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly had one of his worst conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday over the latter’s war against Hezbollah—at the urging of Iran.

• Israel announced yesterday that it would escalate its bombardment of Beirut to go after Hezbollah. At about the same time, Iran said it was walking away from peace talks with the U.S. because of Israel’s attacks.
• Hezbollah reportedly told the U.S. it was ready for a complete and immediate ceasefire—as it began striking Israeli targets.
• The same day, Trump called Netanyahu. Using much profanity, Trump called him “crazy” and accused him of being ungrateful. “Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this,” he reportedly said, as paraphrased by a U.S. official speaking to Axios.
• Netanyahu’s account: “I spoke this evening with President Trump and told him that if Hezbollah does not stop firing at our cities and citizens, Israel will strike terrorist targets in Beirut. This position of ours remains unchanged.”

Iran is using the Hezbollah issue to divide America and Israel. Iran likely even asked Hezbollah to attack in this way to provoke Israel, which would, in turn, provoke Trump against Israel.

• One observer, speaking with the Trumpet, summarized: “What we are seeing from the phone call is that the United States is being played by Iran, and Trump is falling for it.”

Iran has manipulated circumstances with its terrorist proxies to divide America and Israel before. America and Israel entered this war as close allies. But the stakes are now higher, and Iran may use the ceasefire negotiations to drive them apart.

AI Weakens Human Cognitive Skills

A new study shows that using artificial intelligence for as little as 10 minutes can measurably erode human problem-solving skills.

• The study, “AI Assistance Reduces Persistence and Hurts Independent Performance,” was conducted by scientists from Carnegie Mellon University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California–Los Angeles and the University of Oxford. It was published in April and is awaiting peer review.

Researchers gave 354 participants fraction arithmetic problems. Participants with access to an AI assistant solved the problems more quickly and accurately than those who did not. Yet when researchers took the tool away, those who used it were less likely to solve subsequent problems than those who never had access to it.

• Just 10 minutes of AI exposure reduced problem-solving abilities, researchers found. They attributed this phenomenon to reduced mental persistence.

“Once the AI is taken away from people, it’s not that people are just giving wrong answers,” coauthor Rachit Dubey noted. “They’re also not willing to try without AI.”

• The study’s conclusion warned, “If brief exposure produces measurable erosion, the cumulative effects of daily AI use over months or years may be profound and difficult to reverse.”

Other studies highlight these concerns. A Northwestern University survey of 394,000 Americans from 2006 to 2018 found that verbal reasoning, matrix reasoning and computational abilities were all in decline. Only spatial reasoning was strengthening.

• This study shows that even before the prevalence of AI chatbots, extensive use of digital interfaces may have been reshaping how the mind works—boosting skills for navigating a cyberworld while eroding real-life problem-solving abilities.

The human mind can atrophy similarly to how muscles atrophy. This is why the world’s smartest people read deeply, take notes by hand, memorize key concepts, and let knowledge compound in their minds.

• Some of history’s greatest thinkers, like John Locke, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, even solved Euclid’s geometric proofs in their spare time simply for the practice of logical deductive reasoning.

In his classic booklet What Science Can’t Discover About the Human Mind, the late Herbert W. Armstrong noted that God gave humanity a “godly-type mind” with the “ability to think, to reason, to make choices and decisions, capable of forming ethical, moral and spiritual attitudes.”

It would be a grave mistake to take this ability to think and reason for granted. Like all skills, it must be honed and sharpened with dedicated practice.

IN OTHER NEWS

Europe to crack down on immigration: European Union lawmakers and member nations provisionally agreed on the Return Regulation yesterday. Proposed in 2025, it allows member nations to crack down on illegal immigration through the construction of detention centers outside the EU, called return hubs. It also provides increased powers to raid premises and deport those who are illegally in the EU. The law, according to Euronews, could be formally approved and enacted as early as next month. Europe is recognizing the immigration crisis it’s facing and is finally taking steps to fix it. This will promote a more authoritarian Europe, just as the Bible prophesies.

The EU is getting access to Mythos: Bloomberg reported yesterday that the European Union’s cyberagency is gaining access to Anthropic’s new Mythos AI model that can identify and exploit thousands of unknown cybersecurity vulnerabilities with minimal human intervention. Anthropic has limited public access to the model because the company fears it could be used by America’s enemies. “Let’s not forget that Mythos is not [a] one-off: A new wave of powerful models [is] coming to the market,” European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said. “This is a shared challenge, and we are intensifying our discussions with like-minded partners, including the United States.” U.S. cooperation with the EU could help Germany better understand America’s defense against these models and find ways to exploit them.

Denmark has a new, more unstable, minority coalition government after four parties announced an agreement yesterday. Mette Frederiksen, who has been prime minister since 2019, will remain in office, leading a coalition of her center-left Social Democrats, the Socialist People’s Party, the Social Liberals and the Moderates. Even with four parties, the coalition controls only 82 seats in the 179-member parliament, still eight short of a majority. It will probably rely mainly on the Red-Green Alliance, a far-left group, to pass legislation. Two months after its general election, Denmark is the latest European country forced into an unstable coalition with extreme elements as support for mainstream parties plummets. It’s a symptom of unhappiness with mainstream parties and fuel for further unhappiness, as these coalitions struggle to get anything done. Watch for Europeans to reject their coalitions of chaos and instead embrace a strongman.

Israel heads to early elections: Israeli lawmakers voted unanimously today for a bill to dissolve the Knesset. Triggered by fractures in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition—particularly over ultra-Orthodox parties’ demands for military service exemptions—the move could advance voting from the scheduled October 27 date to as early as September. Polls suggest Netanyahu’s Likud party would struggle, potentially losing its governing majority amid ongoing security challenges and political fatigue following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and the Gaza war. The dissolution reflects deep divisions on religion-state relations, conscription and leadership stability.

Colombia could get a new, pro-Trump leader: Based on Sunday’s first round of presidential voting, Colombia’s right-wing candidate Abelardo de la Espriella is leading left-wing Iván Cepeda by more than 2 percent with 43.7 percent of the vote ahead of the June 21 runoff election. Espriella describes himself as a conservative nationalist and has campaigned on developing closer ties with the United States and cracking down on crime. However, Bible prophecy warns that Latin America will work much more closely with a united Europe than with the U.S.—in order to economically besiege America.

Study: Wildfire costs have worsened: Wildfires cost $54 billion in direct insurance losses in 2025, more than any other year, according to a study led by the University of East Anglia published on Sunday. Perhaps $100 billion more was incurred in indirect losses from the Los Angeles wildfires alone. Wildfires also caused 90 deaths and the evacuations of 300,000 people throughout North America, Europe and South Korea last year. The study’s authors used that information as an opportunity to call for the reduction of fossil fuels; however, the Bible warns in Matthew 24 that severe environmental disasters are a sign of the end of the age.