Tim Wildmon: Hey, welcome back to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. I'm Tim with Ed, and now Steve joins us in the studio. Good morning, brother Steve.

Guest: Hey, everybody.

Tim Wildmon: What's happening, Steve?

Guest: I'm just getting rested up for this week. It's going to be a long one, so I'm getting ready for anything.

Tim Wildmon: It's going to be a long one, Steve.

Guest: Well, there's this thing called the midterm elections. I have a feeling it's going to keep us awake a little later than normal.

Tim Wildmon: Why? Because we don't like the results?

Guest: No. Well, I hope we like the results. We've got some close races. It's just that, if you go based on the last several elections, it doesn't get resolved for days. California was still counting votes in the presidential election a week later in some areas. I was like, I don't know. I thought it was a done deal in California. You just go, "I don't have this figured out." I have a feeling it's going to be some late nights, so I'm ready.

Tim Wildmon: I am ready to go.

Guest: Yeah, now I'm going to be here tomorrow night.

Tim Wildmon: Yes, with Fred and you?

Guest: Well, I'll be here. I will be in there with y'all. Walker and Wesley both will be there. I won't be on the air with y'all, but Chris and I will be doing our job here with Chad, and we'll be bringing you in for results.

Tim Wildmon: Yeah, we'll come in and report every so often.

Guest: Hey, if you went to AI right now and just asked it who's going to win tomorrow, could it report it accurately? What would it tell us before we come in?

Tim Wildmon: Well, I'm coming in for the food tomorrow.

Guest: Well, that is true. We do have food served here.

Tim Wildmon: Yeah, and it's good food.

Guest: It is good.

Tim Wildmon: I think we need to take it back. It's not like cheese sticks or, you know...

Guest: Cheese sticks are good, too.

Tim Wildmon: Well, that is true. Now you got me thinking.

Guest: Don't put cheese sticks down, or stuffed muffins.

Tim Wildmon: Yeah, I'll appetize.

Guest: Yes, they're pretty good.

Tim Wildmon: But we're going to have some real food here.

Guest: What did you ask?

Tim Wildmon: I asked, "Who's going to win the midterm elections tomorrow?"

Guest: And ChatGPT, at least on my phone, said, "My prediction for tomorrow's midterm elections: Democrats win the House, but the Senate is a toss-up. If I had to pick, I'd give Republicans a slight edge to retain the Senate."

Tim Wildmon: Really?

Guest: Thank you, ChatGPT. Now, notice this is my ChatGPT on my phone.

Tim Wildmon: Is it a valid forecast for your phone?

Guest: Always. It's much more interested in making me happy than it is in making me informed. That's what we've learned about AI.

Tim Wildmon: Okay, I didn't know that.

Guest: AI has a very tenuous relationship with the truth.

Tim Wildmon: Let me ask you guys this. I don't want to get off on this for 20 minutes, although usually when I say that, that's where we're about to go. That's where we end up. There was this TV commercial the other day about AI. It's this woman, she's like me, out in her 70s or so, and she's in her garden. She's talking to her cell phone, which is placed right beside her on speaker. She's talking to the phone, to the computer, and it's some kind of personal assistant.

Guest: You've got a smirk on your face.

Tim Wildmon: What's that?

Guest: I'm about to say, "You don't know this?"

Tim Wildmon: Go ahead.

Guest: I'm sorry. I'm just an innocent. I'm a very naive person, and I don't care.

Tim Wildmon: All right. This lady is telling this computer on her phone everything she wants to do. It's very detailed information: "Find this for me. Go there. Cancel this order." It's like somebody's sitting right there doing everything for her. How long has this been going on? That's what I'm asking. I know some people are going, "Man, he's so behind the times." Do you know what I'm talking about?

Guest: Well, I tell you, I do. Different AI assistants can do different things, and that's what's coming. What's coming is a way that you can manage your life. For a long time now, you've been able to manage your house, turn the lights on, turn the heat up and down, and all that kind of stuff remotely with AI. But that's coming. I have a story, if we get to it today, that talks a little bit about why that's not such a good thing.

Tim Wildmon: Well, that's what I was thinking. This is kind of scary because that woman's voice was telling this computer everything to do, including ordering this, going there, and canceling this. It was like a real person. Did you just hear the person's voice and know to charge their credit card? It seemed a little bit like, "Wow, I didn't know that." AI is getting so personalized. You can do things.

Guest: Yeah, well, we'll get to that. I hope we'll get to that. I have a couple of things I'm really anxious to get to today. I don't know if we'll get to everything.

Tim Wildmon: Let's start with the story out of Michigan. There was a college student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her name is Liz Benichou. I don't think she's a student there, but she was with a group that was doing one of those Charlie Kirk-type debates. A student came up to her who was obviously pro-Palestine and anti-conservative. Liz ended up being assaulted by this other young student. We have her talking about what happened. This is Liz Benichou describing the attack at the University of Michigan.

Guest: We had our table for open debate, just wanting to have an open, civil conversation, and she didn't seem to want to listen. She wanted to just start shouting. Then she went up to Joe Retton. He's another influencer of the older millennial generation. Cam Higbee was there as well. She slapped Joe in the face with her phone. Then she came up toward me, and I told her, "You would not be able to do this anywhere with free speech." Cam Higbee had been next to me, and he said, "She wouldn't be allowed to be dressed like this." Then she just lunged and shoved me around on the ground. Luckily, there was some campus law enforcement there to arrest her. But I thought these people were for tolerance.

Tim Wildmon: Yeah, not so much.

Guest: When the police finally got this young woman under control, she said, "I should have killed you when I had the chance."

Tim Wildmon: She had a very limited vocabulary, too. This is kind of sad.

Guest: She was using an expletive, which you can only imagine, but she used it over and over and over again. She has about 10 words, with those 10 words of cursing in between.

Tim Wildmon: Why is it always the lefties who get so angry and become physically violent with people?

Guest: That's been a topic of discussion among some groups for quite a while because it is unique. You never hear or see a conservative walk up to a liberal who's having a discussion, lose their temper, and resort to violence. It's always the liberals. Some people say it's because they don't have the factual backing to defend what they're saying, so they go to emotion and personal attacks because they can't defend what they're saying.

Tim Wildmon: Let me just say this, and this is only my opinion. I have absolutely zero evidence for this. A lot of these leftists' belief system is anti-God, anti-Jesus, and anti-Bible. I think that the further you go into darkness, the more darkness gets ahold of you. That's what I think is happening with a lot of these people. I'm not saying this particular young lady, but that's what I think is behind a lot of this on the left.

Guest: Yes. Some of the far-left people, as you say, are God-haters. Some of them will say this out loud. After Charlie Kirk was assassinated, they were saying, basically, "Good riddance."

Tim Wildmon: Yeah, glad it happened.

Guest: They were saying that on Twitter. They were saying, "Good, he's dead." They don't have a problem with violence against people they hate. They also don't have a prohibition in their moral value system like we have. We're taught the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount: turn the other cheek, don't kill, or, I should say, don't murder. We have provisions on how we can treat other people. If you don't subscribe to Christianity, there's nothing internally that says you can't commit violent acts against somebody you hate. Maybe the law prevents you from assaulting people, as is the case here, but there's nothing internally that says you can't do it. You see what I'm saying?

Tim Wildmon: This young woman who got arrested, I think she's already been released.

Guest: Yes, she has.

Tim Wildmon: Someone in the crowd said, "You need to go to a mental hospital." I'm leaving out the cuss words of this lady, who went through the list. She said, quote, "I've already been to a mental hospital, and I'll go again if it means killing you." She apparently is an unhinged person.

Guest: Yeah.

Tim Wildmon: The saying goes, Republicans and conservatives think Democrats and liberals are wrong. Liberals and Democrats think conservatives and Republicans are evil. That's a pretty big difference.

Guest: Even though they don't believe in evil.

Tim Wildmon: Exactly. They don't believe in any absolute truth or spiritual dynamics. They do want to condemn something they don't like, though. They're never consistent.

Guest: Along those lines, I was reading a story over the weekend. I forgot what the source was, but this young lady had moved to the United States from Iran as a child, I think. She was a lesbian and subscribed to far-left politics. The article was about why she left the movement. She said the reason was that the people she was marching with were "Free Palestine" people, saying that Israel was the problem with the world and that the Jews were terrible.

She said she marched for "Free Palestine" because she felt bad for the victims of the war going on in Gaza. Then she brought up to the same people the plight of her fellow Iranians, especially women who are subjected to violence and harassment. The Iranian regime has killed 60,000 of its own people. She asked, "If I say 'Free Iran,' what do you say?" They said, "No, we're not for that." The same people who were saying "Free Palestine" would not stand up for the rights of Iranian women. That's why she left the movement.

Tim Wildmon: She said that was hypocrisy.

Guest: The reason I was drawing that conclusion was that I thought it was because they just hate the Jews. The "Free Palestine" people aren't for consistency around the world on human rights. They're only for the cause of "Free Palestine" because they hate the Jews so much, and they hate Christians and America. You can combine those things. "Free Palestine" doesn't translate to "Free Iran." She said that was the reason she left the movement. They didn't care about the plight of Iranian women or Iranian children because no Jews were involved.

Tim Wildmon: Bingo.

Guest: I have a feeling most of the people protesting for "Free Palestine" couldn't find Gaza on a map.

Tim Wildmon: No, you're right. It's just hate. It's just hate the Jews. By the way, I don't know if you saw this or not, but 20 percent of the vote in Israel's election last week for prime minister was cast by Arabs. Did you see this?

Guest: Yes.

Tim Wildmon: I'm going, "Wait a minute. I thought Israel was committing genocide."

Guest: Well, they're doing a lousy job if they're letting them vote.

Tim Wildmon: Israel is letting Arabs vote, and they're supposed to be committing genocide?

Guest: That's just a bald-faced lie.

Tim Wildmon: I have to believe it. But it's repeated over and over and over again by the left. Even a lot of these entertainers out there say Israel is committing genocide.

Guest: Genocide is ethnic cleansing, right?

Tim Wildmon: Right. That's one way. You don't let people you're trying to kill vote.

Guest: So it's another false accusation against the nation of Israel.

Tim Wildmon: All right, you're listening to Today's Issues on American Family Radio. Tim, Ed, and Steve. What's the next story, Steve?

Guest: I wanted to do a little bit of a timeline cleanse, as they say. This is a nonpolitical story. I just got off the phone at 10 o'clock today, about an hour and a little bit ago, with a professor from Fairfield University. His name is T.C. Schmidt, and he has a book out called Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ.

There is very little significant evidence of Jesus existing outside the Bible, but there is some. Josephus was a historian who lived in Jesus' day, and he records things about Jesus. This new book examines stylistic writings related to the dispute over whether what Josephus wrote was added later because it was so pro-Jesus. The higher critics, the ones who want to disprove all the miracles of the Bible, didn't like this either. This is part of my conversation with T.C. Schmidt.

Guest: One of Josephus's very famous statements is a paragraph account about Jesus. This account has long been known by scholars, but it has also been held in suspicion because scholars believed it was doctored by later Christian scribes. They thought it was way too positive, far too Christian-sounding for a non-Christian Jew like Josephus to have written.

What I do in my book is apply new computer databases to meticulously search the works of Josephus to see if the style of the passage matches Josephus's style. I employed something called stylometric analysis to do that. Amazingly, every single phrase of the passage is used by Josephus elsewhere, either in the same form or in a very similar form. The whole thing can be indexed back to Josephus.

So what did this passage say? This is what is so amazing and thrilling to me. If you want to know about the book we base our faith on, if you want to know if there was a historical Jesus, or if you want to know if what the Bible says is accurate, how about somebody who was a Jew, was not a Christian, and had no reason to write positively about what was going on?

This is what the paragraph about Jesus that Josephus wrote said.

He says that Jesus had many disciples of Jewish and Greek extraction. He says that Jesus was thought to be the Christ. He says that Jesus worked supernatural deeds, although something I uncover is that the word he uses in Greek is often translated very positively as "miracles." But I show that it's really much more ambiguous. Maybe "paranormal deeds" is better. It's something that is supernatural, but of unknown origin, whether divine or demonic.

So Josephus is a little suspicious about Jesus. In fact, Josephus sounds much like the chief priests and the Pharisees in the Gospels, where they don't deny the miracles of Jesus, but they're suspicious about their origins. Josephus seems to fall in the same camp.

He also says that, at the accusation of the leading Jewish leaders, Pontius Pilate had Jesus crucified, and that three days later Jesus appeared to them alive again in fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy.

Tim Wildmon: When did Josephus, who was a Jewish historian, write about Jesus?

Guest: He lived until somewhere around 70 or 80 AD, I think. He lived during Jesus' day. He was a Jewish historian who went to work for the Romans, so he traveled with the Roman armies and covered, as an outsider, though he was Jewish, the war between the Jews and the Romans from 66 to 73 AD. He knew people who knew Jesus. He was basically writing about 40 years after the crucifixion of Jesus.

Tim Wildmon: It really is fascinating. Some of the most horrific descriptions of the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 come from the writings of Josephus, who was covering this as a historian. He wasn't trapped in the city. He was with the Romans, but he himself was a Jew.

Guest: He was writing that Jesus was reported to have been crucified and then resurrected after three days. As a historian, he says this was according to the testimony of the disciples. To me, this paints a picture that what we read when we read the Gospels is 100 percent true.

Tim Wildmon: Which is why people who don't like the Gospels or Christianity treat Josephus suspiciously. If he wrote that, then half the arguments these people make disappear. They say Jesus wasn't worshiped, no one claimed He was raised from the dead until the 200s or 300s, and nobody thought He was God. That's why Josephus is treated suspiciously, but he is pretty stunning reading.

Guest: Yeah.

Tim Wildmon: You mentioned earlier, the person who was using the AI assistant as a personal assistant, the grandmother in the garden.

Guest: She was saying, "Order this off Amazon, cancel that one, and make me an appointment with the doctor." She was doing all this out in the garden.

Tim Wildmon: Those are all good things. If you could have a way to organize your life, it means you don't have to get out and do it all yourself. I think that's all good. But I want you to listen to a guy named Andy Crouch.

Guest: Who?

Tim Wildmon: Andy Crouch is the partner for theology and culture at Praxis. Praxis is a creative engine for redemptive entrepreneurship. He's going to tell us what he thinks is the most dangerous part of AI, what worries him the most about it.

Guest: In my opinion, the number one present danger is the simulation of a person. I have very little concern about AI assisting us in discovering protein folding that will cure disease. But to take a lonely world and tell them, "You always have a friend," and have it be tantamount to a person is to commit an act of really profound deception.

I think that's why we didn't start talking about AI until we had the chat persona, which is ultimately just a way of setting up a large language model to interact with a prompt. It could have that persona.

Tim Wildmon: What he says is the danger is that we've designed AI to be like a person. It's going to take the place of people. It's going to be the companion for people in place of other people, especially older people.

I think I might have mentioned this on the air. My daughter was telling me she uses a ChatGPT kind of person when she's doing some research. This thing sounds like a real person when it's interacting with her, and she can talk back and forth with it. It ums and ahs like a real person. It's startling how realistic it is.

There are lonely people out there, especially senior adults who may be lost. The number one song on iTunes right now is a fake, AI-generated Christian rock song by an artist who doesn't exist.

Guest: What? Are you even real?

Tim Wildmon: Hey, Steve, touch his head over there and make sure he's real.

Guest: If I wasn't real, I would hope ChatGPT would have made me look a little thinner.

Tim Wildmon: Okay, really? Noted.

Guest: Help me out.

Tim Wildmon: Good point. All right, we'll see you back here tomorrow, everybody. Take care.