Ron Rhodes said, “The importance of eschatology is found in the fact that about 25% of divine revelation was prophetic when originally written. In other words, one out of four verses in the Bible are prophetic in nature.”
We reserve a few minutes to discuss current trends that you’d expect from reading Bible prophecy.
We are futurists. We interpret the unfulfilled End Times prophecies as future events that will occur in a literal, physical, apocalyptic, and global context.
Biometrics, Artificial Intelligence, cashless commerce, the manipulation of human DNA, global government, the exponential growth of human knowledge, and the rebirth of national Israel are End Times phenomena the Bible predicts. All of these are increasingly trending in the news.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) might have a role in the future Great Tribulation. It could, for example, power the Image of the Beast.
In the Revelation we are introduced to an associate of the antichrist. Then we read that he tells “those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the [antichrist]. He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name” (13:14-17).
Will AI “give breath to the Image of the Beast” and function like a Terminator?
AI is getting spooky. Many top minds have been sounding a warning for some time regarding AI becoming sentient and having a will of its own.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt compared AI to nuclear weapons and called for a deterrence regime similar to the mutually-assured destruction that keeps the world’s most powerful countries from destroying each other.
Schmidt talked about the dangers of AI at the Aspen Security Forum at a panel on national security and artificial intelligence on July 22. While fielding a question about the value of morality in tech, Schmidt explained that he had been naive about the power of information in the early days of Google. He then called for tech to be better in line with the ethics and morals of the people it serves and made a comparison between AI and nuclear weapons.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3adbwy/eric-schmidt-thinks-ai-is-as-powerful-as-nukes
Meanwhile, Google has fired Blake Lemoine, the engineer who said he believes the company’s LaMDA conversational technology is already sentient.
Research lab OpenAI’s top scientist Ilya Sutskever has claimed the largest neural networks may already be developing consciousness. OpenAI was founded in December 2015.
Elon Musk, along with Sutskever, was one of the original founders and participated in the company’s early days out of his concern for the potential threat AI poses to humanity. Musk has warned that “we need to be super careful with AI as they are potentially more dangerous than nukes.”
Sukskever’s role as the top scientist at one of the leading AI firms gives him an insight that few others have. If he really was being literal in his estimation, it is truly an ominous one. The fact that many experts believe AI consciousness is a ways off is also an indication the industry still lacks the necessary safeguards to prevent Musk’s fears from coming true.
https://www.slashgear.com/768203/scientists-just-gave-an-ominous-warning-about-artificial-intelligence/
They have coined a new name for sentient AI. They call them Soul Machines.
We are not saying that AI will definitely fulfill the prophecy of giving “breath” to the Image of the Beast. But you can see how it could, or at least that it is a precursor.
AI is something expected by futurists like ourselves.
We believe the resurrection and rapture of the church are imminent. It could happen any moment; nothing needs to happen before it. It will happen before the Great Tribulation.
Jesus will return in the clouds.
He will raise the dead in Christ.
He will transform the bodies of living believers to glorified, resurrection bodies.
We will all join Him in Heaven while the earth endures one final seven-year campaign of severe evangelism.
Are you ready for the rapture? If not, Get ready; Stay ready; Keep looking up.
Ready or not, Jesus is coming!