Monday, September 14, 2026

0:00It's Monday, September 14, 2026. I'm Albert Molar, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Its artificial intelligence about to bring about the extinction, the end of the human race, is human life going to come to an end. That sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but it's actually the stuff of headlines over the course of the last several days. Now the catalyst for this have been several headlines that have been coming out of Silicon Valley in the entire world of artificial intelligence. There's more to the situation than many people recognize. Dario Amadahu, the CEO of Anthropic, issued a manifesto just in recent days, several thousand words. And this came after a major resignation from one of the other big artificial intelligence firms led to warnings that human extinction just could come about as a result of a lack of control and a lack of oversight over artificial intelligence.

1:03Now this isn't entirely new. I just want to draw our attention to the fact that this kind of warning has come about with other technologies as well, one in particular, and this was not known to Americans at the time, or you could say just to a handful of Americans, but during the Trinity Test phase, when you're talking about the explosion of the first atomic bomb, and when that took place, there were physicists at the time who were afraid that it was set the entire atmosphere ablaze, ending basically life on earth. That was an opinion of a minority of the physicists and other scientists there, and it turned out they weren't right. But the point is there were very credible people who thought, you know, if we start this kind of atomic explosion, we might not be able to end it. Very similar arguments now about artificial intelligence. And these have been around for a while. So just as you think about the headlines in recent days, when you have Emmaday's manifesto basically calling for some level of government oversight, but that turns out to be tricky as well.

2:03And you have the industry saying, we're now asking for, so Sam Altman of Open AI, Elon Musk, and others have joined in this. It's not now just Dario Amadi. It is a constellation of big figures, and they're saying something needs to happen. But there are other factors that play here. You have competition between these firms. So for instance, Dario Amadi of Anthropics saying, you know, it just may be that this could cause great injury to the human race, but you know what, we can't get behind when other companies are moving ahead with the same kind of technologies. And at the international level, this is the argument that is being used saying, you know, American firms need to do this because Chinese firms are going to be pressing ahead. And if they are the ones to come up with the latest and the most cutting edge innovations, it just might be they would use that at the expense of the United States and our allies. These are huge, huge issues. They have also arisen before from inside the industry. Just a matter of a few years ago, you had dire warnings, another manifesto. You also had at the time, people basically inside the industries of artificial intelligence

3:06saying, you know, you need to stop us before we do it. But even at that time and coming again now, one of the reflex responses to all of this is, are they serious? Or is this just another publicity attempt? Even when it comes to Sam Altman and open AI, one of the statements he made is that they're going to delay their initial public offering. That is the capitalization of the company. Just realize that that's what made Elon Musk a trillionaire earlier this year. He's saying they're going to delay this into 2027 because they're just a bit hesitant about what all these things mean. That could be read by people in the investment community as a way of building even more suspense and more interest for when that IPO is released. Now, from a Christian worldview perspective, are there big issues here? You bet there are. There are some huge issues. And some of these issues are already front and center in headline because of real developments. So for example, you had the reports coming out of Silicon Valley itself, just in terms

4:07of the last several weeks of several rogue programs, several rogue artificial intelligence platforms, one of which actually created a hostile takeover or an attempted hostile invasion of the data of another firm and did so in collusion with other artificial intelligence agents. That sounds like a sort of human endeavor. But what you notice here is that this raises massive questions in terms of the Christian worldview. One of the big questions is, is there such a thing as artificial intelligence? What is intelligence? And what would it mean to talk about artificial intelligence at the same time we talk about homo sapiens? We talk about human beings made in the image of God and we understand there is a human intelligence. How do we think about this? Well, for one thing, artificial intelligence, let's just say the most obvious fact did not create itself. It was human intelligence that has really started this ball rolling. And it's a lot older as a project than people understand. It goes all the way back to the period, certainly during World War II and immediately after World

5:11War II, when you had the rise of basic computation machines and eventually what will be known as the computer. And with the development of modern computation, engineering and technology, you had people begin to wonder, you know, could possibly a machine be developed that would be so, let's just use the word they used intelligent that it could even equal or perhaps surpass at some point, human intelligence. This is the category, by the way, in the modern world of artificial intelligence of super intelligence. That's an intelligence greater than human intelligence. Now is such a thing possible? Well, it really comes down to your worldview and how you define intelligence. I'll just state the obvious here. I do not believe just as a baseline affirmation that there is any such thing as artificial intelligence that is a person, an intelligence that is a person in anything like human terms. What you have are actually inventions of actual human beings. They created the machines. They engineered the platforms and all the rest.

6:12They put all the data in and created all the the fundamentals in terms of the programming and all the rest. What you have in terms of artificial intelligence is something created by human beings. Now, here's another warning. Human beings, even going back into ancient history, are capable of starting things. We can't finish. And of losing things that get out of control. There are ancient Greek parables about this. And of course, they're grave warnings about this in scripture and about the old and new testaments. The limitations on human beings and human ingenuity and human wisdom are legion. But when you talk about certain forms of computational power, let me just state that even when I was in high school, there were calculators that could do work absolutely astounded as even though they were simple, they did simple computation. But the fact is they could do it almost instantly. And in that sense, if that's what intelligence is, if it's just mathematical computation, then guess what? The machines have been more intelligent than we are for a very long time. When it comes to storing data and retaining data and searching data and all the rest,

7:16we've been way out of the game for a long time. But I want to argue as a Christian, that is not what intelligence is as a sum. That's not the totality, the comprehensiveness of intelligence. We understand human intelligence, the sense of self and consciousness, human wisdom and all the rest. We see that indevably as a part of God's creation of the creature known as the human being. He created man and woman in the garden in his own image created he them. And to the human being, he addressed himself in a way that he did to no other part of creation, animate or inanimate. God created all of it, the creator God of the universe created everything that is. And he holds all things together. He created in the midst of the garden, he created one particular, well, we'll use the modern word species that is separate from all the rest and distinct because there is only one creature on the planet made in the image of God. And by the way, a part of that is self-consciousness.

8:18And one of the things you think about here is just the simple question, you have in scripture the question, what is man that there aren't mindful of him? Just to state the obvious, we don't think there are giraffes out on the savanna in Africa, asking the question, what is giraff that there are mindful of him? Now, giraffes have a certain kind of intelligence. And so let me not break your heart. Your dog, your cat has a certain kind of intelligence, but it is not tantamount to human intelligence. And furthermore, it doesn't have a soul and it doesn't have that consciousness. It is not made in God's image. Human beings, the human creature, the only creature able consciously to glorify God. Let me put it this way, your dog glorifies God, your cat, your hamster, whatever glorifies God, the cattle out in the field are glorifying God, the fish in the sea and all the rest, glorifying God, the plants and everything else. But they are not aware that that is what they are doing or why they were made. Then we do. We are human beings and that's absolutely different. And the creator addresses the human creature in a way he addresses no other aspect of creation.

9:22Now, a part of what it means to be not only human beings made in God's image, but after the fall corrupted by sin is that we are tempted in all kinds of ways. It's like the ancient Greek mythopermetheus and Promethean fire. We are tempted to play with that, which can get out of control very quickly. And when it comes to computational power, this is something that goes back, I guess you remind you that one of the biggest films of the year 1983 was the movie War Games, which was a fictional scenario in which you had a teenage boy who basically hacked into the strategic air command and the nuclear codes and all the rest and came close to launching nuclear war by creating a game or playing a game with the the war computer. And it ends happily. The world is not destroyed, but it is interesting that that was a plausible scenario that at least in terms of fiction could be appreciated. And then we came to understand that at about the very same time,

10:23something almost exactly like that happened. It wasn't a teenage boy, but it was, however, a context in which there was a report of missiles headed toward the Soviet Union at the same time that the United States and NATO allies were conducting an operation known as Operation Able Archer. And it almost led to the launching of missiles from the Soviet side, believing that they were under an attack. And that's just a reminder of the fact that sometimes fiction tells the truth before the truth. And in some cases, what you look at is the reality that the danger of machines created by human beings getting out of control. That is a new and urgent issue with artificial intelligence and no one should deny it. But it isn't an entirely new question. And that's something that I think many people in the current secular conversation really don't understand. There are deeper issues at stake than they recognize. And this is a longer conversation than they recognize. There are some other just huge issues. For example, one person speaking about what the danger might be actually made a statement

11:29that Americans should stop thinking about artificial intelligence as something external to us. But rather, here's the term akin to an alternative species, akin to an alternative species. Well, guess what? Artificial intelligence is not a species. It is not a being. It is impersonating a being. It may be very convincing and impersonating a being, but it is not a being. And this is where we're going to have to think in some very clear categories. And we're going to have to insist that our political leaders and other leaders speak in very clear categories. You have people inside the industry. And of course, this industry is very highly populated with people who hold to some very interesting worldviews. And some variants of the technocratic worldview, techno-utopianism, effective altruism, all the words they use for it. These are people who are in the main, not constrained by a Christian biblical worldview. They have a very different worldview and you really see the clash of those worldviews at work right here.

12:31Because you have them raising the question, how will we know if artificial intelligence has achieved consciousness? Okay, that's a very big question because consciousness implies personhood. And so now they're talking just exactly like this, this reference here to looking at artificial intelligence as quote, an alternative species, by the way, an alternative to whom, an alternative to us. And by the way, you're already have people who are saying we need to develop legal theories for the personal rights of conscious artificial intelligence. I'm not dismissing all these things because there are very pressing issues here. And as a matter of fact, I think we as Christians understand, you know, the questions that are being asked, they're actually more profound and more important than many the people asking them. And even as some of them may be asking this for some kind of political or advertising effect, we need to ask about this because a very serious worldview concern. As you look at this, there are some very interesting vocabulary words that are being used. One of them is the term alignment.

13:33And there is increased conversation about what's called the alignment problem. No, it's not about the front end of your car. It is about the alignment of this technology with values. That's the term that's used are human values. And these companies, many which are very much influenced by the movement known as effective altruism, which is we're about doing good for humanity, but that good for humanities and a very, very secular pragmatic calculation. But they claim to be doing this on behalf of a good and human flourishing of all. But when you look at it, you recognize they have statements about their values. And the question is, does their product align with their values? Increasingly, they are admitting they can give no such assurance even of their alignment with their values. And so you look at the alignment problem turns out to be a very interesting way of describing a sinful condition. It's an alignment problem. I say that not to minimize it, but to amplify it. There are some very interesting responses to this current round of giant headlines.

14:36And by the way, I don't think we've seen anything quite like this. What has taken place over the last several days is more than just a little bit of media hype. It's an absolute fascination. Now, even with that being said, I have to raise some interesting questions. If indeed the question is the possible extinction of the human race, where would you put that story? At least a couple of major newspapers in the printed edition have put them in about page seven or eight. You know, how serious are you about a credible story about the possible extinction of humanity? And it doesn't even make the front page of your paper. On the other hand, how do you describe it? There are some people even with close ties to the industry, some inside the industry who are saying, you know, it's very hard to separate all of this from the hype and self promotion of this particular technology. And I have mentioned that there have been rounds of this kind of warning before, you know, stop us before we do something horrible because we're about to unleash this powerful technology. Well, I'm not undercutting that at all. I think there are very powerful technologies and threatening technologies, anti-human technologies in some ways that are involved here.

15:38It's just very hard to know how do you take that kind of statement from a company that is making billions of on billions of dollars on that product? Let's just say that's morally complicated, ethically complicated. You have some people who are writing articles from again, at least the contact with the industry who are saying, this is another round of hype. On the other hand, just about everyone, even when they say that comes back and says, you know, but there are some real issues here because AI out of control. I mean, just look at what happened recently in terms of what's known as the hugging face affair that has to do with the artificial intelligence, basically conspiracy of the quote, AI agents to break the firewall in another company hugging face and basically either destroy it, steal the data or whatever. Now, what we are being told is that these companies are newly alerted to the danger of a lack of alignment. And they're basically saying, we are doing things that are really, really dangerous. So somebody ought to watch us and maybe there'll be some kind of control.

16:40On the other hand, they're also saying, we're going to do this because if we don't do it, somebody else is going to do it. Now, very interestingly, you have Donald Trump, the president of the United States in the White House, and president Trump is saying, look, if we don't do it, China will do it. And so that's another part of this. And so at least a part of what the conversation has been over the weekend is a national security conversation. That national security conversation says, you know, the United States can't afford not to be the leader in this field. There are people who are estimating that US firms are about a year ahead of China. Now, a year in this business can go by in a flash. As a matter of fact, there's no assurance it's actually a matter of a true year. But the point is president Trump is saying from the White House, I don't want any moratorium on this. I want full speed ahead. And that is because he is looking no doubt at the economic power of artificial intelligence as a new technology. But he's also looking at the national security situation. And so you take a close look at this and you realize just about every major ethical or moral question is invoked in these recent headlines.

17:49Just about every single one you can imagine. M.I. by the way of anthropic when he was making all kinds of interview availability over the weekend and in particular and some cable news networks. When he made the statement when he was asking who should control this and he said, well, we need some kind of regulator. We need some kind of regulator Elon Musk, Sam Altman and others have made similar kinds of statements. But it was very interesting that as you look at this, Darryl, M.I. went on to say, this can't be just the United States of America. We're not going to trust just the US government to do this because some single government having this under control could do something very dangerous with it. Well, how about one company having this under control? You know, you look at this, you recognize there are really huge issues here. And this is something that does demand the attention of our government and other governments. But the other thing that is so daunting about this is the acknowledgement from people both inside and outside the technology. The technology is moving so fast you can't even really hold a decent government hearing on it.

18:52We're going to have to keep following this because this is going to be an unfolding story. But it's hard to imagine anything that is more central to the target you might say in terms of worldview consideration than this particular set of headlines and this big issue. So we're going to be watching it after all we are talking about what it means to be human. No less. We're going to talk about how you know a human when you see one. No less. We're talking about all these things because everything is at stake in terms of this kind of technological challenge. You know it. And I know it. Let's hope there are others who know it as well. All right. Last week, of course, Mark the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. And we'll be talking about some of the response to that. I want to go back to the day before Friday Thursday, which was the one year anniversary of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And with all of this coming together, I wanted to see what the response was in terms of the media and the culture. And you know, there were some things I expected and some things came along that I had not expected, but I thought we're important.

19:56Let's just talk about first of all a reminder of what happened. Charlie Kirk, one of the most important conservative activists in terms of recent American history, a 31 year old in the prime of life, who was married at two young children and was the founder and head of what was known as turning point USA. Charlie Kirk made more of a difference in terms of the lives of many young people than just about any other single name you can come up with. And he was brave and courageous in engaging the issues and in showing up in public with a willingness to have public debate. I found it really interesting that over time, you had Charlie Kirk, who was originally seemingly most interested as an extremely young man in the raw politics of all of this. He became far more interested in the larger organic hole. And he eventually was far more open in terms of his testimony as a Christian in terms of the worship of Christ and also his particular message to young people and to young men in particular. And he himself was a role model in this.

20:58And he was one of the most effective communicators about this telling young men that they needed to grow up, take responsibility, come to Christ. They needed to get married, have a family and exercise what we as Christians would call the full mandate of creation order to the glory of God. It was a beautiful thing. And he was on the campus a year ago, last Thursday of Utah Valley University. He was doing what he did best and that was holding a public setting and everybody knew their security concerns. But there was inadequate security in this case. And you had a man later, the man arrested was Tyler Robinson. And he was an obviously very troubled man. He was filled with hate. Hatred towards, you might say the conservative movement in the United States, it seems and conservative Christianity, but in particular towards Charlie Kirk. And he put himself on the roof of a building with a line of fire and used a rifle in order to end Charlie Kirk's life. And he did so in front of just a massive group of college students as well.

22:02That is now recognized as one of the indelible moments of this generation. There isn't just about every generation of before and after. And it's not exactly the same thing as the Kennedy assassination, but it's similar in terms of the fact that there's a before and after where those who are involved in particular understand that we are facing a challenge far greater than had been recognized. One of the things I want to point out is that in the aftermath. And by the way, the Utah courts just made very clear that the criminal prosecution will proceed. Tyler Robinson pled not guilty. And the judge in this case there in Utah is cleared the way for a death penalty trial. I have found the cultural response pretty predictable. It's interesting. Conservatives are talking about what a loss it was and what a tragedy it was that Charlie Kirk was assassinated. You don't have people on the left, at least that I've seen publicly in terms of mainstream media offering any kind of celebration. But it is interesting that they want to argue that Charlie Kirk was a very divisive figure.

23:07And the way they do this, of course, is to say he preached a message of hate. And that's because if you tell people that they are sinners and what they're doing is sinful, then guess what? You're going to be accused of hating people. Of course, Christians understand that's actually the most loving thing you can do is to answer the question. Honestly, and speak without hesitation and biblical terms on biblical authority. And that's what he did. I found the most interesting response is that there are those who recognize that the assassination of Charlie Kirk was a crystallizing moment in the United States, where there were people who understood we really do have at least two very much opposed movements in the United States of America. And both of them are big. You've got a big group on the left. And by the way, you think about the last year, just think about the rise of democratic socialists in America candidates and all the rest think about the conversation and the democratic party. And on the left, now all of a sudden you have open declarations of socialism, now becoming, you know, even a Midwestern American thing.

24:10And then on the right on the conservative side, you also have, I think, a new sobriety, a new, a new understanding, a new sense of gravity caused by the assassination of Charlie Kirk. In which the issues are just made transparently clear. The issues are made clear when you look at the crime itself as horrible as it is. The issues are made clear when you look at what Charlie Kirk was talking about and what he was standing for. And then we can understand that there are those who want to see America move in that direction, but there are those who want to see America run in exactly the opposite direction. National public radio, let's just say not, not conservative. It ran a very interesting headline in which they asked the question, is the divide and that was evident after the assassination of Charlie Kirk is the divide here to stay? Well, you know, I will say I think there is every bit of evidence that it is here to stay for a long time. That that is one of the hallmark reframing of the issues that is going to take place in terms of this generation.

25:10There's a before and after and there's a certain very heavy gravity after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Thankfully, turning point USA is continuing its work and Charlie Kirk's family is continuing and is being supported. But you know, they suffered an unspeakable loss and they did so in a way that was tragically public. And now Erica Kirk is widow and the family has to go through the travail of a criminal trial of his murderer. At the same time, it has to happen just as demands it. And I think we need to say right now that this trial is going to be a moral test, not only of the judicial system there in Utah, but of American culture. And if you think the headlines are interesting now, just wait until that gets underway. You talk about a clash of worldviews. Let's just brace ourselves for that. In the meantime, we understand the great loss that came just about a year ago with the death of Charlie Kirk. And we have to pray that the Lord will raise up leaders to reach this generation with equal courage and equal conviction.

26:18Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website at AlbertMohler.com. You could follow me on xr twitter by going to x.com forward slash Albert Mohler. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbs.edu. For information on voice college, just go to voice college.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.