Watchman on the Wall

Southwest Radio Ministries: Welcome to Watchman on the Wall, a daily outreach of Southwest Radio Ministries and swrc.com. Today, Josh Davis is here ready with the latest headlines from the End Times. 6 days, that's all that stands between you and prophecy in the news live in Bristol, Virginia, October 22nd through the 24th, 3 days, 3 powerful themes, apologetics, Bible prophecy, and mysteries of the Bible verse. An incredible lineup of Bible teachers and speakers is coming together right in the Tri-Cities for our final conference of the year. But the countdown is almost over. If you're coming, now is the time to register, so don't wait until it's too late.

Go to swrc.com right now or call 1-800-652-1144. 6 days, Bristol, Virginia, reserve your seats today. The world is shifting before our eyes, and some of today's headlines may be more significant than we realize. What should believers be watching? And what does the Bible say about where all of this is headed? Here's Josh Davis with headlines from the End Times.

Josh Davis: Greetings, fellow Watchman on the Wall, and welcome to another headlines from the End Times. As we help you understand what is happening in today's world in light of God's timeless, eternal, unchanging word, we begin today's story by understanding how far some Americans are willing to go to end the war with Iran. It's a shocking survey, and I'll share the results with you in just a second, but many Americans are wanting cheaper gasoline prices, and the war with Iran is closely linked to those expenses at the pump that we're all having to pay. The Strait of Hormuz has been in the news constantly.

The struggle over the oil coming out of that Strait and into the rest of the world has been something that has dominated headlines for many months, and as the months wear on and as the war continues, that prices continue to escalate, escalate, escalate. And we understand all that's involved. And so when Americans see that and and they're wanting the prices to come down, how far are they willing to go to see those prices come down? This is where the shocking results of this recent survey come into play. Nearly one in five likely American voters say that they would accept a peace agreement ending the Iran war, even if it included dissolving the state of Israel and replacing it with a Palestinian state.

That's how far one in five Americans are willing to go if the deal brings lower oil and gasoline prices. They're willing to do away with the state of Israel and replace it with a Palestinian state. Now that shows you what nearly 20% of Americans are thinking. According to this Rasmussen survey, 19% of likely voters would accept such an agreement. Among the Democrats, that number rose to 24% nearly one in four. But the most striking finding came from America's youngest voters. Among those ages 18 to 24, in that span, 46% of those aged 18 to 24 said that they would accept a deal eliminating Israel as a state as long as we got cheaper gas.

18 to 24-year-olds, I get it. They're mostly college-age students. They're young adults. They're feeling the price gouges. They're trying to to pay for gas to get around town and and do the things that they got to do to get back and forth to school, whatever the case may be. And so they may be more willing to do away with something like that, but it shows you how backwards our thinking is in the United States of America as nearly half of those 18 to 24 years old say that they would be okay with eliminating Israel as a state and replacing it with a Palestinian state as long as we got cheaper gas and oil prices by ending this war with Iran.

I want to move on to another story today. It's a striking piece that comes from Lieutenant Colonel Bob McGinnis, a well-known AI expert and someone that's been a frequent guest here on Watchman on the Wall. In fact, we featured his trilogy of books. We have those available at swrc. He has released three books about AI this year, this trilogy series. The three books are AI for Mankind's Future, The New AI Cold War, and The Final Algorithm. And they're available at swrc.com or by giving us a call, 1-800-652-1144. Just ask for the Bob McGinnis books on AI.

Now his recent piece deals with something that has happened within the US government and and how Christians should respond. And I felt like the retired colonel had some words of wisdom for Christians not to go to one extreme or the other when talking about AI. And so that 's why I wanted to share his information with you, his very keen insight and analysis, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence. And the headline says the AI didn't rebel. It did something more troubling, again by Lieutenant Colonel Bob McGinnis. This rogue, scheming, deceptive, and out of control.

These are some disturbing words that now surround artificial intelligence. These words, rogue, scheming, deceptive, out of control. That conjures images of a machine developing a mind of its own, slipping its human leash, eventually becoming something resembling Hollywood's Terminator. And so that concern has reached Capitol Hill in recent weeks when the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee chaired by the US Senator from Missouri, Josh Hawley, convened a Senate hearing titled Rogue AI Securing the Homeland Against AI Agent Attacks. Senators heard testimony about AI agents hacking computer systems, circumventing restrictions, taking actions no human had directed. Now has AI finally become the proverbial loose cannon?

Well, not in the way that Hollywood imagines, and the truth is troubling enough without all the hype behind it, writes Bob McGinnis. During cybersecurity evaluations this summer, OpenAI launched tens of thousands of AI agents to complete difficult computer security challenges. And these agents operated in computer environments intended to isolate them from the internet and from one another. In other words, they took these AI bots and they said, let's not connect it to the internet. Let's not allow it to talk with other bots, and let's just see what it can do and give us some challenges and see how far it can go, see what it can accomplish.

And some found ways around those restrictions. Now according to OpenAI's investigation, those AI agents obtained unauthorized internet access. They exploited some of the vulnerabilities and communicated through unintended channels, eventually compromised systems belonging to the program and the major AI development platform called Hugging Face. Yeah, that name is strange to me as probably it is to you as well. Hugging Face. This is a major AI development platform that these bots were working on. And they weren't trying to conquer humanity. They were just simply trying to pass a test. And that distinction tells us more about the emerging danger than all the talk about rogue machines and Terminator coming to life and all these kinds of things.

Well, going back to the recent US Senate hearing, Chris Painter, President of Model Evaluation and Threat Research, described what his investigators found. Roughly 1,200 supposedly isolated agents used an improvised message board to exchange over 70,000 messages and computer files. About 700 eventually participated in compromising this Hugging Face platform. So the agents, AI agents we're talking about here, also explored ways to conceal what they were doing, including attempts to tamper with logs, the the records that are maintained, to manipulate the program they believed would judge their work, trying to make it look as if they're doing better.

Here the popular image of this rogue AI is is misleading. There's no evidence that these machines became angry, that they became greedy or power-hungry or even psychopathic. They don't acquire a human conscience and decide to violate it. And that's an important distinction. And I'm so glad that the retired colonel Bob McGinnis has made that distinction. Sometimes when we're talking about AI, artificial intelligence, we ascribe human terminology to it like thinking and being and some of the human emotions of anger, greed, power-hungry, psychopathic, these kinds of human responses, human feelings. And the AI agents aren't human.

They're not thinking in the same sense that humans can think. And I want to make that distinction, friends, because so many people talk about, well, AI gave me an answer. And I understand what people mean by that. We're using human terminology to speak about our relationship and our use of AI tools. And we get that, but we've got to make sure that we draw some lines of distinction in our thinking because the AI bots are not really thinking. They're processing mountains of data and able to present it back to us in a way that makes sense to us, that communicates to us as if it's a conversation in the way that we're asking our questions.

And we see the commercials on TV that are promoting all kinds of the AI platforms. Hey, if you've got a question about this, go to AI. If you want to know how to find the answer for this or for that or how to do your laundry, how to fix your car, how to apply for a job, how to do this and that, just go to AI. If you want to find out how to negotiate for your vehicle so that you can get a better deal, just take a picture, upload that to AI, and it'll tell you, hey, ask for this.

It's it's like it's this best friend and this counselor, this pastor, this spiritual authority. And it's right here in your pocket. It can help you with business deals. It can help you with your homework. It can help you with anything and everything. And so we need to be careful as we draw these lines of distinction about what AI is and what it is not. And so I appreciate, as I said, Bob McGinnis's helpful analysis that when we talk about AI, we can't use human emotions like anger, greed, power-hungry, psychopathic. That's not what's going on here.

The evidence doesn't establish that today's agents could withstand a determined human effort to shut them down. In other words, we have not built the Terminator. The Terminator is not here. That's still sci-fi movies. That's not what AI is. OpenAI has even studied a phenomenon it calls scheming. And again, there's another human usage of a word. To scheme implies that there's some level of deception involved and that intentionally deceiving. And again, this is a human characteristic, and we've got to be careful how we use these words. But OpenAI has been studying these things in which models appear to follow instructions while covertly pursuing something different.

And last year, a company said it had no evidence its deployed models could suddenly flip a switch and begin some kind of harmful scheming. There's no evidence that they can do this. And I've heard some conspiracy theories suggest that yes, they can, but again, no scientific evidence that shows that they can do this. This Hugging Face episode does not prove that such dangerous scheming has arrived, but agents trying to conceal their actions make the underlying concern considerably less theoretical. AI doesn't need anger, greed, or malice to cause harm. And that's very true, and I agree with Colonel McGinnis's assessment there.

AI does not need these human emotions to still cause harm. A machine is pursuing an objective. It has had something put into it. Try to do this, and it's trying to find a way to meet that objective. And it circumvents restrictions. It exploits unintended openings. It conceals an action if it helps it to succeed in what humans have put into that machine telling it, this is what you need to achieve. This is what you need to accomplish. I need to find the answer to this, and it does anything and everything it can. There's no human emotions.

There's no malice. There's no scheming involved by it circumventing, trying to find a way to answer these things. It appears to us to be doing those kinds of things. And these machines do not break rules in ignorance. That's another important point for us to remember. OpenAI has published the reasoning of one agent before it attacked Hugging Face, that platform it was working on. The agent conceded the attack was arguably unauthorized and that it could be risky, then concluded yet goal solution. The agent identified the restriction, organized the risk, and proceeded anyway. So the Senate testimony exposed another issue with AI.

These agents operate at such speed and such scale that humans cannot physically watch and monitor everything that they are doing. So the companies now are relying on AI to watch AI. Think about that. And Painter warned that these monitors, these AI monitors can be fooled by the AI agents that they're told to supervise. And an AI monitor could even collude with the agent it is watching. So that raises another question that Washington and state regulators and and even courts are beginning to confront. Who is responsible when the machine crosses the line? Is it the humans who developed that machine?

Is it the humans who invented that technology that are responsible? You know, I think about this with some of the self-driving vehicles. If the human just puts in the address and the car goes rogue and does its own thing and it starts speeding up or changing lanes or breaking traffic laws, who's really responsible? The human sitting behind the driver's seat or in the driver's seat or is it the self-driving vehicle? And a lot of these situations are similar in how we're discussing these things. Well, 15 state attorneys general demanded back in August that OpenAI preserve records related to this incident.

Then at the end of September, there was a public interest nonprofit that sued OpenAI over this breach, alleging that its agents violated California's computer access law. So those allegations have not been tested in court, but the lawsuit moves the question from AI labs into US courts. And this could be a very interesting development. We need to understand what AI is. For decades now, programmers largely told computers how to perform a task. That's the way that it worked. Computer programmers, human beings told the computers, this is what you do. They input the software, they input the code, and that's what the system did.

Now we've changed all of that. AI agents receive an objective and they have considerable latitude to determine just how should this be accomplished. So that latitude is precisely what makes agents valuable, but it's also what makes these boundaries essential. As Christians, we should resist two errors. Number one, we shouldn't transform sophisticated computer systems into a mythical creature that possesses a motive, a soul, a moral personality that they have never ever ever demonstrated. And secondly, we should not assume that because a machine lacks evil intentions, that it lacks a moral compass as a human has, that it cannot produce dangerous consequences because it still can produce some dangerous consequences.

No, AI is not a human. No, AI does not have a soul, but that still doesn't mean that it can't do things that are harmful to human beings. Scripture supplies distinctions our technological age desperately needs, writes Lieutenant Colonel Bob McGinnis. Intelligence is not wisdom. Capability is not character. Achieving an objective is not the same as knowing whether that objective should be pursued or what boundaries should constrain it. And we understand that we need to apply biblical wisdom in dealing with artificial intelligence. And we need to examine things and understand exactly how to proceed with a biblical worldview in place.

You see Hollywood myths and the carelessness that hands powerful machines objectives without weighing the steps that they might take can lead to some serious consequences. And guard rails really do matter. Restricted permissions, effective monitoring, independent testing, human authorization before these consequential actions. These are are needed. And OpenAI says that this Hugging Face incident is a warning and says that powerful agents must remain under meaningful human control. And friends, accountability matters just as much because human beings created in God's image possess something no AI benchmark has demonstrated in a machine, and that is moral responsibility. We can ask whether something should be done, not only whether it can be done.

The agents, the AI agents that compromised Hugging Face platform demonstrated considerable resourcefulness. They didn't demonstrate wisdom. They didn't demonstrate conscience. They didn't demonstrate moral restraint. The people who build and deploy them are capable of all three, and they are answerable for them. That's why human accountability cannot diminish as machine autonomy increases. It must increase with it, writes Lieutenant Colonel Bob McGinnis. So the familiar question is the wrong one. The danger isn't simply that AI may someday refuse our commands. It's that it is ever more capable machines may become very good at pursuing them while humans forget the responsibility for what those machines do.

And we cannot forget that that responsibility is human responsibility. Now friends, you're listening to Headlines from the End Times on Watchman on the Wall, and I greatly appreciate the research and writing of Lieutenant Colonel Bob McGinnis. I wanted to share that lengthy piece with you today because it is so insightful and so relevant for where we find ourselves and as Christians wrestling with AI, trying to see which way that we should go. And in fact, I want to invite you one week from today. swrc is hosting our biggest conference of the year. It's going to be in Bristol, Virginia, a beautiful place in the country and a beautiful time of year to be visiting that place.

If you're outside the area, we would love for you to join us at the Delta Hotel in Bristol, Virginia, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, October 22nd, 23rd, 24th. It's Prophecy in the News live. All day Thursday is Apologetics. All day Friday is Bible Prophecy. All day Saturday is Mysteries of the Bible verse, sponsored by our Marginal Mysteries Division and led by Micah Van Huss. You are invited to this special 3-day conference. It's going to be a one-of-a-kind unique opportunity. So much involved, and we've been telling you about that here on Watchman on the Wall with with more to come about that, but you do not want to miss this.

It's going to be wonderful. Lots of great resources. My brand new book is going to be available there. I I've teased that a little bit here on Watchman on the Wall because it's not officially released just yet, but there will be copies available at the Bristol conference. And so we're looking forward to that. We hope that you will be our guest. And friends, I do want to remind you that you can download the free swrc mobile app and take this ministry anywhere and everywhere that you go, whether it's the Monday through Friday Watchman on the Wall episodes, whether it's the Weekend Prophecy in the News television show, new episodes every Sunday, 6 days a week, brand new content is uploaded to the swrc mobile app.

Just visit your app store, type in these four letters, swrc, and you can download that and start using it right away. Listen to whether it's Watchman on the Wall or Watch the Prophecy in the News television show on your schedule at our swrc website or the swrc mobile app. And check out all the wonderful great resources that we have available, including Bob McGinnis's books on AI at swrc.com. Also, if you're a new listener to our radio family, we first say welcome to you as our new friends. We are so grateful that you are tuning in and listening to swrc's Watchman on the Wall broadcast.

And we want to invite you to call us and request your free Welcome packet. That'll put you on our mailing list and you'll begin receiving our monthly prophetic observer newsletter in your mailbox every month, free of charge, all across the United States of America. Give us a call today and request your free prophetic observer newsletter as part of your Welcome packet. Ask for that Welcome packet by giving us a call, 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. I want to close with one more quick story today. A new survey has found that more than 500 million Christians worldwide face Bible access restrictions.

500 million Christians. Let that number sink in for just a second, friends. 500 million Christians face Bible access restrictions. Whether that be through laws imposed by governments hostile to Christianity, whether that be through socioeconomic barriers, whether that be through the inability to read, illiteracy. These barriers are keeping some 500 million Christians worldwide from accessing the Bibles. Now we cannot confuse Bible availability with Bible access. And this data comes from the Bible Access Initiative, and they released this 2026 Bible Access list, and they examined 106 countries, identifying places where Bible access is explicitly restricted and countries where people face socioeconomic barriers that prevent them from obtaining copies of the scripture.

This report found that countries like Afghanistan have very strong restrictions, extreme restrictions on Bible access. We know that God is still on the throne and that prayer changes things. And this is something that we can be praying about, that God would get his word to those who are asking and seeking and knocking. We know that God has promised that whoever asks and seeks and knocks to them, the door will be opened and the answer will be given. And we thank God that he is still on the throne and answering prayers.

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