Can AI Development Be ‘Paced’?

Good morning,

On Saturday, technology’s fiercest rivals agreed on something for the first time in memory: The machines they are racing to build might be too dangerous, and therefore a pause in development is needed.

[BRIEF]

• But it is abundantly clear that the forces working against a meaningful pause are overpowering. The only way to slow AI down is to do it together—and nothing on Earth can make rivals move together on something this consequential and costly.

The admission was unprecedented. In a 3,800-word essay Saturday morning, Anthropic ceo Dario Amodei said AI development needs to be “paced.” He warned that within six months, a rogue AI agent could take over the entire Internet with a persistent botnet, wreaking hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.

• Within hours, Grok’s Elon Musk (“Dario is right”), OpenAI’s Sam Altman (“I agree … we need to pace the frontier”), and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis had all endorsed it. These three companies normally can’t agree on the time of day.
• This proposal came just days after an Anthropic researcher resigned, warning that these companies were gambling with the future of civilization.

Not so fast: Amodei’s proposal for “pacing the frontier” has three steps. They immediately demonstrate the impossibility of the challenge:

The first—embed outside evaluators inside the labs—Amodei said Anthropic would do unilaterally right away. That’s great, but clearly, one company’s safety checks can’t police the whole industry.

• This is obvious from a September 10 report from Anthropic detailing several threats it managed to stop, including five times when scientists tried to use Claude for dual-use research that could support biological weapons. Over a period of eight months, scientists used vpns and disguised accounts to evade geographic blocks and solicit Claude’s help with gain-of-function work on chikungunya and bird flu, orthopoxvirus research, and redesigning toxins. One request asked Claude to draft a grant for chikungunya gain-of-function research that would have been carried out at a military research institute.
• In one case, when Claude refused, the researcher simply took the request to a rival AI with weaker safeguards.

The second—get Washington to grant an antitrust waiver so competitors can coordinate safety standards lawfully—is unlikely.

• President Trump, asked yesterday about the pause, dismissed it. “Whoever wins AI, wins,” he said. (How do you “win AI”? There is no finish line. And what do you win?)
• David Sacks, cochair of Trump’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology glibly wrote that the companies didn’t need government permission to slow themselves down.

The third, even Amodei conceded may be impossible: Convince authoritarian governments—chiefly China—to agree to red lines on bioweapons and self-improving AI.

• The same weekend, at the brics summit Xi Jinping called for a “consensus-based global AI governance framework”—then pledged that China would help build an open-source AI bloc with Russia, Iran and eight other members.
• Chinese models like Qwen and Kimi K3 already rival American flagships at a fraction of the cost. Beijing’s AI-robotics push is central to its economic strategy. A pace-setting deal that only slows the country in the lead works beautifully in China’s favor.

The “Moloch Trap” is real. This is why efforts to reap only the benefits of AI while eliminating the civilizational threats it poses are doomed.

• Agreement among these frontier companies is thin and easily undermined by self-interest. Hopes that the federal government will rein everyone are misplaced: The Trump administration doesn’t even believe the threats are real. And getting China to cooperate on limiting its own powers is a pipe dream.

Knowledge without character: Raw power is moving faster than the humans wielding it can control. Human ingenuity, unrestrained by wisdom or submission to God, does not stop itself. Truly, Jesus Christ’s warning about the threat of human extinction, barring divine intervention (Matthew 24:21-22), is coming into clearer and clearer focus.

Saudi Pipeline Attack Spikes Oil Prices

Saudi Arabia shut its east-west pipeline late Thursday after it was struck by drones from Iraq. This pipeline connects Saudi Arabia’s oil fields near the Persian Gulf with its port at Yanbu on the Red Sea and is its main means of bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has closed with violent and deadly strikes on merchant vessels.

• The drones likely came from Iraqi Shiite militias loyal to Iran. Nobody is taking credit for the attack, but the drones came from a part of Iraq that is a stronghold of Iran’s proxy militias.
• As a result, the global price of oil shot up to $108.50 a barrel.
• Analysts associated with the shipping data company Marhelm told the Telegraph the pipeline could take more than a month to repair due to a “lack of spare parts.”
• This comes as Saudi Arabia is struggling to contain another Iranian terror proxy, the Houthis in Yemen.

Iran is trying to bully Saudi Arabia, angered that the Saudis and other Arab states largely sided with America during the Iran war.

• Donald Trump has close relations with Saudi leadership and other Gulf Arab countries. Iran may also be trying to pressure these leaders to persuade him to back down.
• Iran’s Hormuz embargo hurts petrostates like Saudi Arabia most of all. The pipeline bombing demonstrates Iran’s disruption of the oil trade is a concentrated attack on Saudi Arabia, among other countries.

Psalm 83 prophesies that certain Middle Eastern Muslim countries will band together to form a super-bloc. Verse 6 mentions “the Ishmaelites,” the Saudi people today. (Chapter 4 of The King of the South explains in detail.) In his 2021 article “Deadly Flaw in Mideast Peace Deals,” Gerald Flurry stated that the Psalm 83 alliance will come together in part because it is “motivated basically by fear of Iran!”

• Saudi Arabia wasn’t friendly with Iran in 2021—but relations have grown far more tense since.

Without oil exports, the Saudi economy and regime cannot function. Iran is demonstrating that it has full capacity to hurt Saudi Arabia where it is most vulnerable. This will spur Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries to look for new partners. The King of the South shows who this new partner will be.

Trump Wants to Break Up the UK

Donald Trump said that he would “love to see” a united Ireland during a trip to the Republic of Ireland over the weekend.

It’s an astonishing statement for a U.S. president, especially the day after 9/11:

• The Irish Republican Army waged a brutal, decades-long terrorist campaign aimed at forcing Protestant Northern Ireland to reunite with the Catholic Republic of Ireland.
• The ira killed at least 600 civilians and more than 1,000 British security force members, murdered Lord Mountbatten (second cousin to Queen Elizabeth ii), and tried to murder Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
• America supposedly declared war on terrorism, declaring it wrong as a tactic, no matter what the objectives are. Yet American presidents have consistently been soft on Irish Catholic terrorism because of the large numbers of American voters of Catholic Irish descent.

This comes at a crucial moment for the United Kingdom: Leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are meeting in Cardiff today, where they aim to publish a joint declaration on their right to hold independence referenda.

• Independence parties are in power across all three nations for the first time.
• Scotland’s first minister said Andy Burnham “will go down in history as the final prime minister of the United Kingdom.”
• Scotland voted against independence in a 2014 referendum. However, nationalists are determined to keep holding votes until they get the outcome they want.

President Trump’s comments appear to throw America’s weight behind this movement to break up the UK.

Breakaway efforts signal a demoralized country. As we wrote at the time of Scotland’s referendum:

One hundred years ago, being British meant being an enthusiastic and unapologetic child of a globe-girdling empire. This empire wasn’t perfect (what human empire is?), but it was far more benevolent than others and was a force for great good and civility in the world. Scotland was an integral part of this empire and made countless important contributions. …

Today, that willingness to identify with being British is gone. The sense of identity no longer exists, at least not in the traditional manner. … There is no longer respect and admiration for the empire and what it stood for. There is no loyalty to Judeo-Christian values. No admiration for Great Britain’s heritage, for its vital contributions to the English language and culture, or to the economies, infrastructure and legal systems of peoples and countries the world over. In contemporary Britain, there is no such thing as being British. … It’s just as King Solomon stated 3,000 years ago: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Today there is no vision of being British, and Britain is perishing.

Trump is backing this anti-British movement perhaps without considering the implications. Though he has done some great things for America domestically, he has no understanding of the Catholic-led Holy Roman Empire rising in Europe. The push for a united Ireland not only divides and conquers the UK but does so to the direct benefit of that European empire.

Hamas’s October 7 Anniversary Surprise for Europe

Germany indicted seven suspected Hamas members on Friday for planning attacks against Jews and Jewish centers in Berlin and Vienna on Oct. 7, 2025, the two-year anniversary of the Hamas massacre of more than 1,200 people in Israel.

• The plan fell apart when three of the suspects were arrested while acquiring weapons on October 1. All are in custody awaiting trial.

This will embolden Germany not only to step up its fight against radical Islam but also to champion itself as a protector of Israel and the Jewish people.

The plot, which the indictment says high-ranking Hamas leaders ordered, is linked to the terrorist group’s efforts to build branches in Europe using Turkey.

• The attack would have marked a shift in the Palestinian terror organization’s abilities from “fundraising, propaganda and logistical activity” in Europe to launching attacks in Europe according to Politico’s reporting on the indictment, which is not public.

The suspects obtained 13 pistols, over 700 ammunition rounds and a fully automatic rifle for the attack. Weapons were supplied, in part, by an “international weapons-procurement network” that moved them through multiple European countries, Politico reported. A Hamas agent allegedly worked on coordinating part of the network from Lebanon.

Daniel 11:40 prophesies that Germany will dominate Europe and lead it to attack and destroy the head of radical Islam, Iran. News of Hamas-backed plots like this push Germany toward that clash.

Germany will seem like a protector of Israel and the Jewish people as it fights radical Islam. However, the Bible warns it is not. Germany will betray Israel and even temporarily ally with the Palestinians against it.

IN OTHER NEWS

Russia threatens nuclear attack on Lithuania: If Lithuania choses to host nuclear weapons on its territory, the nation will be placed “in the crosshairs” of Russia’s nuclear weapons, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday. His statement comes amid deliberations in Lithuania’s parliament this week about lifting a constitutional ban on the deployment of nuclear weapons in the country. To understand how Russian aggression is helping push Europe into the posture forecast in biblical prophecy, read “Russia’s War on Ukraine Is Reshaping Europe.”

Sweden election too close to call: Provisional results from Sweden’s elections yesterday project its left-wing parties to win 176 of the 349 seats in its parliament, a majority of three. The center-left Social Democrats, the largest party, suffered its worst result in over 100 years. The incumbent government, led by the center-right Moderates in cooperation with the fringe-right Sweden Democrats, is projected to lose its majority as the Sweden Democrats lost support for the first time since entering the parliament in 2010. The Moderates, however, did not lose support for cooperating with the Sweden Democrats, as some had expected. Official results are expected to be announced on Wednesday.

Canada wants to become ‘associate member’ of the EU: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Sunday that Canada doesn’t want to become a European Union member, but to enter “a unique alliance with the European Union.” The Wall Street Journal reports that Canada is exploring becoming an “associate member,” a new title for a closer relationship with the bloc. While Canada hopes this relationship will enable it to become more independent from the U.S., the Bible warns that the German-dominated EU will betray not only the U.S. but also Canada.

Media turns fire on Clancy holdout juror: On Friday, cbs Mornings identified the lone holdout juror who refused to find Lindsay Clancy not criminally guilty of her admitted strangling of her three children, by reason of insanity. That same day, nbc10 Boston reported a history of domestic violence allegations against him, though no charges were cited. Publicly revealing someone’s private or identifying information without consent is called doxxing, and it is often used as an intimidation tactic.