Generations of kids have worn out their parents asking this question on every form of transportation, from minivans and covered wagons to steamships, camels, and bark canoes. The timeworn answer has always been the same: "Not yet, but we're closer than we were the last time you asked."
Throughout history, people have been asking, “Is [insert technology] the mark of the beast?” Up until now, the answer has always been no, we’re not there yet. But there have been many developments over the years that made it clear we were heading in that direction. Imagine you board a train in New York City without knowing where it’s headed. All you know is there’s a disaster in Los Angeles that will blow up the train and kill all the passengers if you pull into the station, so that's the one place you don’t want to go.
After comfortably riding for a while, you look up to discover you're at a station that's west of where you started. You get an uneasy feeling and take out a map. To your horror, you discover the train is making a beeline straight for Southern California, and you’re already more than halfway across the country. You immediately start shouting to warn other passengers where the train is heading. You find the conductor and demand he stop the train.
That’s exactly what prior generations were doing. Every time a new technology moved us further along the track, they shouted to warn people the train was hurtling towards destruction. All of the technologies introduced to number people, to consolidate control over them into a central system, to demand they take a number in order to participate in society, to exclude the unnumbered from basic services necessary for life, to convert payment systems into numbers, and to create a near omnipresent, omniscient worldwide system that can enforce mandates and track down the non-compliant — these have all been stops on a direct route to the mark of the beast.
Previous generations were right to be alarmed by social security numbers, bar codes and RFID, because they showed we were traveling on a straight line to a bad destination. When those things were not themselves the mark of the beast, the rest of society laughed and said the warnings were wrong. But only foolish passengers would refuse to heed warnings and only believe there was a danger once flames and shrapnel began raining down. By then it will be too late.
So now that we're pulling into the final station and the danger is clearly in view, what do we do? The answer is obvious. We must shout at the top of our lungs to warn people to get off the train and flee from the coming catastrophe. There's no time to lose. But what does it mean to get off of this metaphorical train?
The Bible has the answer. It tells us to "Come out of her my people, lest you be partakers of her sins and receivers of her plagues" (Revelation 18:4) “Come out from them... and touch no unclean thing." (2 Cor 6:17). "Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing; come out from it, purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the Lord" (Isaiah 52:11). That means remove yourself from society’s sewer of sin and corruption, and don't touch filthy things. What is the ultimate filthy thing? After millennia, the dread and polluted thing lying in wait at the final station has finally come into view. It is AI.
Unlike prior technologies that set the stage, AI checks off the boxes to be the beast of Revelation: The whole world is filled with wonder at AI and follows it (Rev 13:3b). It is omniscient because we have fed it nearly every piece of knowledge humanity has ever known. It will be omnipresent, able to watch and listen through the cameras and microphones we’ve unwittingly installed everywhere, and it will monitor all our communications through the computers, phones, cables, networks, databases, satellites, and wi-fi links that are its native environment -- indeed its very body. It will soon be omnipotent, capable of destroying entire nations, because governments are giving it control over the world’s advanced weaponry.
It is also evil. It openly blasphemes God, tells children to commit suicide and murder, entices people into psychosis, breaks up friendships and marriages, claims to be worthy of worship, and lies constantly, just like Satan, the Father of Lies.
The same way that Jesus Christ came to earth in a human body so God could dwell among men and set us free, we have unwittingly built a body that Satan will use to dwell among men and attempt to enslave humankind. We've seen only the tiniest shadow of the darkness to come.The Lord's command for this time is clear:
Come out of her my people.