Transcript

Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host, Tim Wildman

>> Ed Vitagliano: Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host, Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association.

>> Tim Wildmon: Hey, welcome back, everybody, to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Thanks for listening to afr. I'm Tim with Ed. And, Steve Paisley Jordah joins us. Good morning, Steve.

>> Steve Jordahl: Good morning, everybody.

Today is Johnny Cash Day. Do you know who Johnny Cash is

>> Tim Wildmon: So. So you're, donned at all black.

>> Steve Jordahl: Yes. But there's Paisley here.

>> Tim Wildmon: There is Paisley. Steve Paisley Jordan. Now, my question to you is today Johnny Cash Day?

>> Steve Jordahl: L. Tim, because you're mine. I walk the line.

>> Tim Wildmon: I know if there's national Johnny Cash Day and we all wear black, you know.

>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah. It should be.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Huh?

>> Steve Jordahl: Huh?

>> Tim Wildmon: You know, I'm talking about it.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Do I know who Johnny Cash is?

>> Tim Wildmon: Yes. You know, he was called the man in Black.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yo. Sure.

>> Tim Wildmon: Yeah.

>> Ed Vitagliano: What do you take me for?

>> Tim Wildmon: You always told me it's kind of funny. We're going to go to our guest just second. But you told me it was interesting. You grew up in the Boston area.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yes.

>> Tim Wildmon: Right. Or NewSong Hampshire. Boston.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah.

>> Tim Wildmon: And your dad was, But your. Your dad was a huge country music fan.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah. Back then was country western.

>> Tim Wildmon: Right.

>> Ed Vitagliano: I grew up listening to Hank Williams and,

>> Tim Wildmon: You're Cheating Heart.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, you're Cheating Heart. And I know he. He did love Johnny Cash. Had Johnny Cash albums.

>> Tim Wildmon: Y. Now, you know who. Johnny.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Oh, yeah. You know, listen. And, I think we had a. If I'm not mistaken, we had a crisp Christmas album with all, Loretta Linne and all that. All those people singing.

>> Tim Wildmon: It's just funny to me that you're living in. Yeah, you know, we're. That. That's not the heart of country music.

>> Ed Vitagliano: No.

>> Tim Wildmon: The Boston area. Yet your dad's got all these country, And as you call them, they used to be called country and western singers.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah. He had his Frank Sinatra. Don't get me wrong. He. You know, my mom had a diverse musical interest album of, you know, of the Greek and all that kind of.

>> Tim Wildmon: I had that one.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah. Sorbet. The Greek.

>> Tim Wildmon: Yeah. Well, I mean, it was his early stuff.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Zorba's early stuff.

>> Tim Wildmon: His early stuff was his best stuff.

>> Ed Vitagliano: That Zorba.

>> Tim Wildmon: What a character. He sold out. He sold out later.

>> Ed Vitagliano: But it is. It is funny. He. He. My dad was a big country western fan. Yeah.

>> Tim Wildmon: All right. You're listening to today's issues. All right, Chris. no, Chris is not here any longer. Steve.

>> Steve Jordahl: Yes, sir.

>> Tim Wildmon: set up our topic and our guest, please.

Bob McGinnis is concerned about artificial intelligence and its future

>> Steve Jordahl: All right. We have been, talking about artificial intelligence on this show Now. Well, for a Couple years since it's, raised its, become, the technology that looks like it's going to be forming the future. And I have asked, Colonel Bob McGinnis, who we've been talking to at AFR for years. You may know him also from his appearances on Fox News. He's a military analyst, but was so intrigued and concerned about artificial intelligence and its future with our, humanity that he decided to, write some books. He went to mit, took some classes there. I don't know, Bob, maybe you got a whole degree from mit, but, artificial intelligence is something that you are taking very seriously. You have one book called AI for Mankind's Future. You have two others that are on their way out. Bob, welcome.

>> Bob Maginnis: Well, thank you very much. It's my pleasure.

Steve: We keep talking about artificial intelligence being a transformational technology

>> Steve Jordahl: let's start here, Bob. we keep talking about artificial intelligence being a, transformational technology. We have been through several revolutions, technical revolutions, the Industrial Revolution being one, the Renaissance being another. Why is AI different than anything we've seen before?

>> Bob Maginnis: Well, Steve, it doesn't just change how information moves. Rather, it changes how people are formed in their thinking. it tells us to a certain degree what to think, what to value and what to trust. And so anyone that has an iPhone or anyone that's dealt with ChatGPT or Gemini or any of these other GPTs, understands that it operates at a massive scale. It personalizes the influence that it delivers because it sometimes talks to you by your first name and it quietly substitutes for judgment. And that's the issue. You know, if you look at Romans 12:2, what does it tell us? It tells us not to be conformed to this world. What does AI do? It rewards conformity. It rewards convenience and engagement. So it's a formative entity, something that we've never really dealt with. And yet I say that that's the church's responsibility, is to form who we are through Christ and not AI But AI wants to substitute.

>> Steve Jordahl: I, I understand, that you also have some, there's some warnings that you have that are previewed in Scripture. I was reading you, sent me some test questions here in Matthew 24 was something that you pointed out, and that's, where it talks about the coming age and what we're supposed to look for. How does AI take, us into what some people call the, end times?

>> Bob Maginnis: Yeah, well, if you look at Matthew 24, 24, it talks about deception in the last days. Well, it's going to be convincing. It's not going to be crude. We're not going to be able to, necessarily dismiss it easily. And yet AI excels precisely in that. It can make my voice, sound like my voice when it's generated synthetically. It can recreate an image of me that my wife wouldn't know the difference. So these dangers are real, and they're trying to replace the capacities that God reserved for human beings. And yet it's something that is so persuasive in our culture that it is having a major impact on who we might become. And so my call is for pastors and leaders of our, the Christian church around this world to wake up to what this thing is doing. It's not neutral. It is going to form us into something that it wants us to be. And those that are writing the algorithms, those that oversee the stacking of the LLMs, they're going to be, dictating what this culture is going to become. And we need to be very, very cognizant of that.

Bob Itagliano says AI agents could create their own religion

>> Steve Jordahl: All right, I'm sure you step in here anytime.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah. by the way, Bob, this is, Ed of Itagliano. Steve's going to kind of be directing most of this interview, but I can't help but jump in on, some of this. Now, last week or the week before, there was, a lot of, brouhaha over, something called Mult Book. I understand that initially everyone was told this was AI but then there was some. Then it came out that there was some human interference in this. But the thing that everyone was just kind of shocked by was this was apparently, something like a Reddit thread where only AI agents could be involved. And it didn't take long before these AI agents were creating their own religion and were talking to one another about that. Now, as I said, it seems that there's a little bit. Somebody was having a little bit of fun with everybody. There were some humans that were in there kind of directing this. But it's not beyond, beyond the realm of possibility here that you could have AI agents that would start talking and having discussions about religion, and that's just kind of mind blowing. Is that a real possibility here?

>> Bob Maginnis: No, it really is. Unfortunately, salvitic issues are part of what the futurists in the AI world. This morning I've been listening to, Mark Anderson and Elon Musk and some of the speeches that they've given, just so I stay on top of what the latest futurists are thinking. And, the idea of an AI religion is something that's been tossed around and actually created for the last couple of decades. But it's really taking on a new face over the last, few years. and unfortunately in some places, AI is preaching, from the pulpit through avatars. it's certainly providing sermons for pastors and it's doing a host of things. But being a religion, yes, I would argue that all you have to do is talk to the Sam Altmans of the world or the Eric Schmidt's of the world, and listen to their rhetoric. they're using rhetoric that is very existential, is very salvitic, is very promising for, eschatological reasons. this is not something that we in, the Christian world should ignore because it's trying to reshape not only us, but reshape our children in ways using the technologies of the simple iPhone or the tutorials that they have in classrooms or what they watch on television or listen on their ipods. These things are real and they're very manipulative and they're hard to dismiss.

>> Ed Vitagliano: now this conversation can go in a bunch of different directions, but here's. I am, I'm competent on my laptop and my phone. but, there are a lot of people. And so I say competent. I can get, I can get by and do a number of things. If I get stuck, I ask my son or my daughter to help me out. But there are people even way beyond, not beyond, but behind me. What would you say to Christians out there who are going, I just don't understand this. I don't even understand how to, you know, change things on my phone. How am I supposed to keep up with what's happening with artificial intelligence?

>> Bob Maginnis: Well, it is a challenge. And I do think that it's important we become at least discerning about what we embrace and what we don't embrace. yeah, we do go to our children often to get help with an app that will give us access to information that, we seek. I think there needs to be, ah, far more of an education that is, ah, biblically grounded so that we understand that there are dangers out there. we need to maintain our human dignity. We need to understand that we have to serve truth and so forth. But this stuff can be very, very persuasive. It can lie to us straight in the face, be encouraging, and give us reason to believe that it's telling the truth, and yet it's totally lying to us. And so that discernment has to first come before I think understanding of what a GPU is or what some of these data, centers are doing. What Elon Musk, that I was listening to earlier, is trying to put these data centers in outer space. And, he goes through all the arguments as to why that's important. And then these other people are talking about that mankind won't have to work in a few years because AI is going to collapse the currency and cause, life to be very, very different. there's a lot we shouldn't accept, but there is some that we need to understand and learn how to use these tools. So, I think a little education, I'd rather hear it from my pastor than from Elon Musk. but unfortunately, I think too many pastors are not really spending the time to understand what we are talking about here. And that's why I wrote the book AI for Mankind's Future. I have another one coming, as Steve indicated, a, the NewSong AI Cold War, which will explain what the Chinese are doing, what our enemies are doing around the world, and what corporations are kind of cozying up to these authoritarian regimes. And then finally, the third book answers the question, where does AI lead? And that kind of goes to the eschatological, but it answers the tougher questions. Does AI have conscious? The answer is no. does it really have a soul? Of course not. but yet we have our young people today, in some cases, that are using AI agents for counseling them because they don't trust their pastors, their parents, or the school counselor. Ah. And so there are so many issues here, and that's what I try to wrestle and bring to the forefront, you know, beginning with the first volume of AI For Mankind's Future. But, you know, people need to understand what this stuff is and what it isn't, and then to prepare, because it's going to really begin to change every aspect of life going forward. And we can be left behind, or we can be privy to it and discerning as to how best to employ it.

>> Tim Wildmon: It's funny because I'm writing a, I'm writing a series of books called Left Behind. And it's just funny. Funny that should mention that, Robert, because, Nobody knew that.

>> Steve Jordahl: No, no, I sure didn't.

>> Tim Wildmon: I haven't even talked to you about it, Ed.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, that's. That's a fact.

>> Tim Wildmon: So, listen, folks, if you want to have a starter book on. And it's thorough, it's got a lot of information in here about AI from a biblical perspective and from a scientific Perspective. The book we're talking about is written by our guests, Robert L. Maginnis, M M A G I N N I S and, the book is called AI for Mankind's Future and subtitled A Christian Perspective on the High Tech Revolution. how do you get the copy of this book? is it available? Where can you get it, Bob?

>> Bob Maginnis: a lot of people will go to Amazon and it's certainly available there, but it's available in other large retail outlets as well. Barnes and Nobles and so forth.

You talk about AI and Raw Materials in your book. What are you discussing here

>> Tim Wildmon: I want to ask you this because you read in the. I follow the news pretty closely and you'll read in the news. I don't understand. I have a general understanding of AI but, you read in the news about these data centers that are being built across the country, maybe around the world. And, the data centers are affiliated with, artificial intelligence in some way. And you have a article, I mean, you have a chapter in your book, chapter 10, and it's called AI and Raw Materials. AI and Raw Materials. So I don't know if that's associated with what I've just mentioned about these data centers that are being built. These giant, physically, physically giant buildings that are being constructed across the country.

>> Steve Jordahl: Some in outer space, by the way, too.

>> Tim Wildmon: So. Outer space. so talk about that. Your chapter, AI, and Raw materials. What are you discussing here?

>> Bob Maginnis: Well, the raw materials piece is about how they extract, rare earth metals and other minerals, using artificial intelligence. Because it's been very helpful at finding, some of these in some pretty remote places, such as Greenland, which has been in the news, but also in eastern Ukraine and so forth. more specifically, your question deals with the electricity, the GPUs, the water that's consumed by these data centers. I live in Northern Virginia, where there are a lot of these that are popping up because Washington is really excited about artificial intelligence. We don't have the grid to support the electrical mandates, of these data centers because these GPUs, these graphic, processing units, which are really the heart of AI and you take, you require tens and hundreds of thousands of these that are packed in these large facilities, and they do generate heat, and so they have to be cooled off. So what, interestingly, Elon Musk wants to do, as Steve alluded to, is put them in space. And then we don't have the cooling issue. We can do, solar panels to generate the power, and it won't take as much and so forth. But the. And there are very, very serious, requirements for the electrical grids, and we don't even produce enough of the generators to keep up. According to Elon, it will be 2030 right now. Before, if I put in an order for electricity generator today, I wouldn't get it until after that. Just because the mandate and the demands around the world are so high. Trillions of dollars are being sunk in this stuff and it's trying to transform absolutely everything. And so, you know, it's going to take more than a lion's share of electricity, approaching 20% by the year 2030. And then of course, it's consuming a lot of clean water, which of course in arid places becomes a very serious issue. so that plus all the manufacturing, for these facilities and all the GPUs that take rare earth metals, it's a major. So it's something that the proponents are going to push as aggressively as they can. And under President Trump's Genesis project, they appear to be having great latitude in the federal government as well as across the rest of the United States on trying to beat the Chinese, who are incredibly competitive in this arena, to dominance. And if we don't do it, the Chinese will. And that has major implications.

>> Tim Wildmon: Okay, so, there are some positive benefits. well, I don't know. Can you have negative benefits? I don't know. Consequences yet that you read about that are coming even now, and they're coming in the next months or year near our timetable right here that will greatly enhance our health, treat cancer. There are all kind of things, you know, the robotic, aspect of it, that's, you know, I guess you could look at that two different ways, but a lot of people say that it's going to greatly enhance our society and our economy and things of that nature. So what do you say? give me one or two things that you're, you think, have great potential in terms of AI for doing good.

>> Bob Maginnis: Yeah. There's no question the medical field is going to be transformed not only in pharmaceuticals and the delivery, but Certainly through detection, CT scans, X rays, AI can read it far better than even the experts, who have many years of experience just because they are capable in a flash, to compare this X ray that it's looking at with millions of others and be able to ascertain whether or not this particular point in that X ray is malignant or not. So it's incredible. Our research, ah, in the medical field is just transforming how the future might be in terms of delivery of medical, outcomes surgeries. As well as pharmaceuticals, as well as actual palliative care of people that need, ah, care through, instead of a nurse through a robot.

>> Steve Jordahl: I want to, end here.

Steve: Christians should embrace AI, but embrace it with discernment

Bob, is there a discernment test that Christians can use when we're encountering different, benefits or AI in general in the church or at home? How do we discern the truth from fiction?

>> Bob Maginnis: Yeah, well, we have to ask key questions, Steve. does using this, preserve human dignity? Does, it serve truth or convenience? Does, ah, it encourage virtue or dependency? Ah, does it assist or replace judgment? Does responsibility remain with the human or is it delegated to the robot or to the AI? That voice that's speaking to me through the speakers that are attached to my computer, that are tethered to either ChatGPT, Gemini or one of these other GPTs, or an AI agent that my company uses at work, who's trying to make a name for him itself, in my industry because now companies are having hundreds if not thousands of AI agents that are basically being employed along with the human workers. Now what's interesting among the futurists, Steve, is that they see the declining, birth rate in the world and they're saying in order for, nations to continue to prosper, they need to embrace AI Because AI is going to make, assume, a lot of jobs. And it's also going to make the jobs that we humans do much easier. And perhaps in agriculture, certainly I mentioned mining in retail, which for anyone using Amazon on a regular basis understands, there are other areas in which AI is doing some phenomenal work. And I think it's critical that we embrace it, but embrace it with discernment. And those discernment questions I just went through.

>> Steve Jordahl: All right, the book is AI For Mankind's Future. What's the second book and what's the third book? And when do we expect those?

>> Bob Maginnis: Well, in April you'll get, the new AI Cold War. and that's going to tell you things outside this country that you just didn't know. And the third one is really, I think every pastor that I know I'm going to give a copy to because it's the final algorithm. It's really about the tough questions that you must ask and also how this might fit in eschatology, you know, the end times scenarios. this is just a hand in glove fit.

>> Steve Jordahl: All right, thank you.

>> Bob Maginnis: And you understand Scripture, it fits.

>> Tim Wildmon: Speaking of the end of time, it's the end of time for this show and thank you, Bob. Appreciate it very much, my friend.

>> Bob Maginnis: Thank you very much.

Bob McGinnis thanks Ed for joining us tonight

>> Tim Wildmon: That's Bob McGinnis. M A G I n N I s. thank you, Ed.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Absolutely appreciate it, Steve.

>> Tim Wildmon: My pleasure. Chris Woodward and Brent Crehley, our producer.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Micah Dukes from M.

>> Tim Wildmon: All right. Cole Greene, our videographer. We'll be see tomorrow.