Chronicles of the End Times
Occasionally, people say, are we really in the last days? How do we know? Does it matter one way or another? We will try to answer these questions and many others in this study. But the most important question may be, how can we reach others with hope in these changing times? One part of prophecy is often emphasized over another, causing us to lose perspective and miss the blessing and beauty of prophecy in scripture. I have taken the information in this study from many authors and teachers who have their lives studying God's word. I have added some insight that the Holy Spirit taught me. With God's help, I have endeavored to keep the whole counsel of the word of God in full view to give us an accurate picture of Christ and His great love for a lost world. I pray that this will challenge you and cause you to grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, as it has me preparing it. Let's begin!
Chronicles of the End Times
The Digital Deception: How AI Could Fulfill Biblical Prophecy
Technology is racing forward at breakneck speed while most of us go about our daily lives unaware of how rapidly our world is transforming. In this thought-provoking exploration, we dive deep into the unsettling connections between biblical prophecy and today's most advanced artificial intelligence systems.
The evidence is becoming impossible to ignore. ByteDance's OmniHuman can create videos of anyone—including historical figures like Albert Einstein—that appear strikingly authentic. DeepSeek produces images so realistic they're virtually indistinguishable from photographs. These aren't science fiction scenarios but technologies available now, with capabilities that align disturbingly well with Revelation's description of the "image of the beast" that can speak and control commerce.
What happens when trusted religious leaders, celebrities, or politicians can be perfectly simulated saying things they never said? Already, deepfakes have been weaponized in elections across Taiwan, Moldova, and South Africa, while financial scams using AI-generated content have cost victims billions. The deception Jesus warned about—so powerful that even the elect might be fooled—suddenly seems less mysterious and more technological. Most alarming are the warnings from AI safety researchers themselves, who are leaving top companies like OpenAI because they believe safety concerns are being sacrificed for profit and speed.
Whether you're tech-savvy or technology-averse, this episode offers crucial perspective on navigating a world where seeing and hearing can no longer be trusted. Subscribe now and share this episode with someone who needs to understand how ancient prophecies might be unfolding through modern technology. Remember, truth remains our strongest defense—no matter how convincing the digital illusions become.
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Speaker Names
Speaker 1
Welcome everyone. This is Russ Scalzo. Chronicles of the End Times. Thank you for being with me today.
00:18
Today, we're going to talk about AI. There's been a lot of talk about that over the last few years. You may have heard the podcast that we did some time ago on AI and the image of the beast, but I want to incorporate a few things into this podcast. Listening to the AI revolution on YouTube some great information there Talking about open AI and it's gearing up for GPT 4.5. And then the most amazing and alarming at the same time is DeepSeek, which produces images of people that are staggeringly real, so much so that it's difficult to see what's real and what's not. The AI race is accelerating and we're witnessing its most intense phase. Yet Time is going by very fast, folks. While we go about our normal day, technology is racing at breakneck speeds. What does it all mean for the future? There are many thoughts and predictions about what the mark of the beast and the image of the beast will be, but I can tell you this it's not going to be a 90-foot gold statue, as is depicted in Daniel, that all of a sudden starts to talk, according to Revelation, chapter 13. We are in a new phase. We are living in the future. The future is now, as they say, especially with technology. There's no doubt in my mind and I hope in yours as well, as we see what's going on with AI that the image of the beast which will control the whole world's economy is going to be a digital reproduction of the beast himself.
01:56
So, let's read about the second beast. Right. We have the first beast which comes out of the sea, which is the Antichrist. Then you have the second beast rising out of the earth. They had two horns, like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. This is the false prophet. He is the mouthpiece for the beast, for the Antichrist. The scripture tells us that it exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence. It makes the earth, and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound has been healed, that he is killed, and he comes back to life. Most believe that he comes back possessed by Satan himself. But let's concentrate on this second beast. It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to the earth, in front of people and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast, it deceives those who dwell on the earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain. It also causes all those, both great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or on the forehead so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark that is the name of the beast or the number of his name.
03:28
Deception is an amazing thing. There's always a little bit of truth in deception, or it wouldn't be deception Kind of look at people sideways when they say yeah, but I believe with all my heart that, and then they go on to say whatever it is, and I just look at them and say you do know what the word deception means, right, and when the deception is strong enough, people will get into a jet plane and they will fly it into buildings, not caring about their life, because they are convinced about something that they believe in. It doesn't mean it's right. It doesn't mean it's true. And since many get their news and their opinions from social media these days, they are being taken in and convinced without proof, without research, of many things in their lives. It's very sad that we have gotten to this point. I totally believe that social media is making us dumber by the day. I want you to listen to this clip. Let me know what you think.
Speaker 2
04:26
Now, depending on which write-up you read. Bytedance says they trained OmniHuman on a huge data set of somewhere between 18,700 and 19,000 hours of video. That's a ton of content. They're pretty hush-hush on the exact sources, but we can safely assume that with TikTok's massive content library, they aren't running short on examples of human movement or speech patterns. The paper on OmniHuman posted to the open xar archive site describes how the researchers used multiple conditioning signals meaning text, audio, body poses to teach the AI how humans move and talk. They call this approach omni-conditions, which basically allows them to feed the AI different inputs so it can produce videos for a wide variety of scenarios speaking, singing, gesturing or even playing instruments.
05:18
In some of the sample videos ByteDance released, you see a fictional Taylor Swift performance that looks unbelievably convincing, like you might do a double take to check if it's real. There's also a clip of Albert Einstein giving a lecture in crisp black and white, looking as if it was shot with modern HD cameras. At one point, Einstein says what would art be like without emotions? It would be empty, gesturing with his hands and everything. It's borderline spooky because it truly looks like the real. Einstein is right there talking about art. Then there's a video that apparently shows a TED Talk that never took place, and in another demonstration, they show some random scenario where a person is holding a wine glass, but you can see some weird movements, as if the AI is having trouble with that particular pose. So, it's not perfect, but the leaps it's making beyond older deepfake methods are huge.
Speaker 1
06:14
Now this technology has moved forward with such speed and the next clip we're going to hear talks about just how far it's come in the last few months. This is how fast, exponentially growing. It's amazing and, yes, it has a lot of benefits. But, as we're going to hear in this next clip, it also has a dark side. Let's check it out.
Speaker 2
06:39
Let's say you have a single image of a friend or a celebrity. You just feed that, plus some speech or vocals, into the model and OmniHuman can generate an entire video with that person dancing around, doing big gestures or delivering a speech. It's like those apps where you can animate old family photos, except taken to the next level, full-blown, near-Hollywood-level video illusions. But of course, while this is extremely cool technology, there is a dark side. We're living in an era where deepfakes have already begun spreading across social media. Articles reference multiple incidents around the globe. For example, on election day in Taiwan, there was a group with ties to the Chinese Communist Party that posted an AI-generated audio clip. It made it sound like a local politician was endorsing a pro-Chinese candidate, even though he wasn't. In Moldova, there were deepfake videos depicting President Maya Sandu resigning when she actually hadn't. And in South Africa, a deepfake of rapper Eminem endorsing an opposition party circulated around election time. So yeah, the risk for misinformation is serious. And that's just politics.
07:47
Deepfakes are also getting used in financial scams, where fraudsters create fake videos of celebrities pitching bogus investments. Deloitte reported that AI-generated content contributed to more than $12 billion in fraud losses in 2023, and it could reach $40 billion in the US by 2027. That's a staggering amount, so it's no surprise there have been calls for strict regulation, including an open letter signed by a bunch of AI researchers last year. A major problem is that deepfakes, especially high-quality ones, can be really tough to detect. Even though social networks and search engines claim to be implementing AI-based detection tools or labeling systems, the volume of AI-generated stuff is just exploding. One ID verification firm, Jumio, did a survey in May 2024 and found that 60% of people said they encountered a deepfake in the past year and get this. 72% of them said they were worried about being fooled by deepfakes on a daily basis.
Speaker 1
08:49
This is a great video to watch and, of course, because it is video, you get to see a lot of these images, really startling. Why is this important? It's just another emphasis on the Bible. Why do I need to read the Bible? Is it really that important? Yes, I go to church, you know. I know God exists. Yeah, I'm a Christian, I'm not worried about any of this. Well, folks, you need to be, you need to be wise.
09:15
As I mentioned before, deception is powerful. The delusion is so strong, in fact. Jesus said the delusion is going to be so strong that, if it were possible, even the elect would be fooled. What is he saying? This is how strong the delusion is. Now we have to understand that this is a spiritual delusion. This is even beyond what humans can do. So, if we don't know the truth, we will be sucked in. There is no doubt in my mind, and that's just from a spiritual standpoint.
09:49
If you add to it the physical, you're seeing people on TV. They look exactly the same as that person. They talk exactly the same. All the nuances are identical. How are you going to tell who's who and what's the truth? We need to know the truth. Suppose some evangelist, pastor, minister is on TV and they're telling you that it's okay. It's okay to take the mark, you'll be taken care of. It's okay to believe this or that or that.
10:21
Jesus really didn't come in the flesh. It was a spiritual thing, it's an allegory, and people are sitting there watching it going oh, I really trust that guy, I really trust that woman. The word of God is the authority. If you know it, it doesn't matter if the most influential Christian person in the world is telling you something else on TV or on your phone or on your computer. You know what the real truth is. That's why it's so important to stay in the word of God.
10:55
It is not an option. It just makes sense that if the image of the beast is an AI-generated entity, then that generated AI entity would have full control over all the finances of the world and could easily do what the Bible says without having the digital mark. And it's not an accident that the Scripture tells us that he will put that mark on your forehead or on your wrist, because those are the places that God told the Jewish people to put the law of God, to wear it around their heads, to wear it on their right hand. And also, Paul tells us that we have the seal of the Holy Spirit, so why wouldn't? The Antichrist, being not so much an Antichrist or an Anti-Jesus but a substitute, a replacement for the real one? That's really what it means. So, let's keep in touch with the Lord in these times, more than any time before, because deception is real, the delusion is everywhere. If you have doubts that the threat is real, listen to this last short clip that opens with a statement from Elon Musk.
Speaker 3
12:04
Mark my words. Ai is far more dangerous than nukes. I think the danger of AI is much greater than the danger of nuclear warheads by a lot. The problem is it's going to happen so fast? The AI race is accelerating at a pace that even the experts who built it are now terrified of. And the latest person to sound the alarm, Stephen Adler, a former open AI safety researcher, who just left the company, publicly warning that AGI is a ticking time bomb.
12:33
But he's not alone. Some of the world's top AI minds, including those who were once at the core of OpenAI safety research, have walked away, claiming that the risks are being ignored in favor of speed and profit. Favor of speed and profit. Leak, who co-led OpenAI's super alignment team, publicly criticized OpenAI after quitting, saying that safety had taken a backseat to shiny products. And it doesn't stop there. Daniel Kokotajlo, another AI safety researcher, revealed that nearly half of OpenAI's AI risk team has now left.
13:06
This raises serious concerns. If the very people tasked with ensuring AI remain safe don't believe in OpenAI's commitment to safety, what does that say about the risks we're facing? Steven Adler's terrifying warning about AGI? Adler's concerns go beyond just OpenAI. He's worried about the entire AI industry moving too fast without solving the critical issue of AI alignment. In his post, he stated no lab has a solution to AI alignment today, and the faster we race, the less likely that anyone finds one in time. For context, ai alignment is one of the most pressing challenges in AI safety. It refers to the ability to ensure that AI systems operate in ways that are beneficial to humanity without unintended consequences and, as of now, there is no guaranteed way to keep an AGI artificial general intelligence under human control.
Speaker 1
13:59
Interesting stuff and scary stuff. We are truly living in the last days. How far do you think God's going to let this go in the last days? How far do you think God's going to let this go Once AI has control of the finances of the world, which I'm sure is going to take place sometime in the next decade, when we finally all go to digital currency? Years ago, digital currency was only a dream, a thought in some scientists' mind.
14:29
I used to talk about this when I first began to teach on Bible prophecy 40 years ago, and everybody would say nobody's going to get my credit card number, they're not going to find out my information. Of course, we can't wait to put our information online today, but this information is not something you should fear online today. But this information is not something you should fear, for God is truly in control of all things and it's all headed in one direction, and that's to glorify His Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords, and to Israel the revealing of their Messiah. Stay close to the Lord and he will guide your path. He will never let you down. His word is a lamp unto our feet. Let's not be like others who walk in the darkness but let us be the light that leads people to the true light. Jesus Christ, thanks for listening. This is Russ Scalzo for Chronicles of the End Times. Keep looking up. The King is coming.
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