One major theme of the new book by John Lennox – God, AI and the End of History: Understanding the Book of Revelation in an Age of IntelligentMachines – is that the sorts of things we read about in Revelation might not just be some distant possibilities, but perhaps current realities. The various things we are seeing today in terms of statist control and surveillance systems and the like seem to be looking quite similar to what is described in Revelation.
As he writes:
I have probably written enough to enable my readers to understand why it is that I take Revelation very seriously indeed. It is not that I am dogmatic about what precise kind of technology will be involved. We just do not know, and we should not pretend to, since technology changes incredibly rapidly. Speculation in terms of 1960s technology would look very dated and irrelevant now, would it not? Nevertheless, operating on Paul’s principle that ‘the mystery of lawlessness is already at work’ (2 Thess. 2:7), I think it is legitimate to attempt, in terms of what we now know, to imagine what the world controlled by the dark power of the monster might well be like. We do not have to wait for these prophecies to materialise before thinking through our own response to the loss of freedoms and the increase in intrusive surveillance and control with which we are already familiar. The future is stealthily creeping up on us, and we may be in danger of becoming like toads who do not notice the imperceptible increase in the temperature of the water in which they are slowly boiling to death. (p. 356)
Consider just two tyrannical and evil states today: North Korea and Communist China. Lennox speaks to both as he discusses what is found in Revelation, especially in Rev. 13. As for North Korea, he begins by quoting Yuval Noah Harari:
North Koreans might be required to wear a biometric bracelet that monitors everything they do and say, as well as their blood pressure and brain activity. Using the growing understanding of the human brain and drawing on the immense powers of machine learning, the North Korean government might eventually be able to gauge what each and every citizen is thinking at each and every moment. If a North Korean looked at a picture of Kim Jong Un and the biometric sensors picked up telltale signs of anger (higher blood pressure, increased activity in the amygdala), that person could be in the gulag the next day.
Lennox then says this:
Of course, such bracelets are simply an extension of the idea of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) electronic bracelets or Radio Frequency identification (RFID) tags that are already being used for home or prison monitoring of people charged with a crime. The RFID chip sounds suspiciously like the ‘mark of the beast’ since nowadays most transponder implants – about the size of a grain of rice – are actually inserted into a person’s right hand. Many thousands of people already have them. It should be noted that current RFID chips are not powerful enough to be tracked from a distance, but that will doubtless change.
I find it rather odd and inconsistent that many people will take Tegmark’s, Harari’s and other scenarios seriously, but will also cursorily relegate Revelation to the realm of fantasy movies of the Harry Potter type with their realistic computer-generated imagery of scary animals such as the lethifold. Such people don’t even pause to ask how Revelation turns out to be so prescient. (p. 352)
But it is worth quoting him more fully on this to see just what terrifying statist activities are already taking place, and how much worse they might get – not just in Communist nations but in Western ones as well. Here is a lengthy quote from the book:
It is high time for us to wake up to the disturbing fact that something very similar to what Revelation predicts is already being implemented in parts of the world today and we are being very slow to take on board the reality and danger of it. AI-based surveillance systems are deployed throughout many countries in order to effect some level of social control. The surveillance state is no longer merely a distant dystopian threat but a fearful and present reality.
For instance, as part of President Xi Jinping’s vision for data-driven governance, the Chinese are setting up a governmental ‘social credit system’ (SoCS). The basic idea of the SoCS is that the Communist Party of China wishes to measure its citizens (and corporations) to determine whether they are ‘trustworthy’ or not. To achieve this goal, each citizen is issued with a personal identity number and awarded, say, 300 social credit points that can be added to by ‘good’ (i.e. government-approved) behaviour, such as paying debts (or fines) on time, using public transport, keeping fit, donating to charity, donating blood, volunteering, reporting on someone you have seen with large amounts of foreign currency, and so on. As your points accumulate, you are granted more and more perks, for example access to a wider range of jobs, wider access to contracts, mortgage opportunities, reduced utility bills, school placements for children, goods, travel possibilities, even reduced rental costs for bicycles.
However, if you behave in ways officially deemed ‘antisocial’, such as associating with people regarded ‘unsafe’ by the government, coming into conflict with the police, over-indulging in alcohol, jaywalking, driving badly, smoking in non-smoking zones, buying too many video games, cheating at such games, not visiting your parents regularly, not keeping your dog on a lead, posting fake news online, plagiarising, writing and sharing content conforming to anti-government ideologies, playing music too loud on a train, complaining, and a host of other things, then you will lose points and attract penalties at different levels, for example limited access to the job and housing market, restrictions on travel or even on the range of restaurants you can visit, having your credit card withdrawn, being banned from flights,” and so on. You might even end up being denounced as a ‘discredited person’ on a public television screen as you walk past it. Public announcements on some trains warn of the credit disadvantage of antisocial behaviour.
God, AI and the End of History: Understanding the Book of Revelation in an Age of Intelligent Machinesby Lennox, John C. (Author)
He continues:
It is easy to see that, if and when the SoCS is standardised, digitalised and ubiquitous, it will facilitate a massive hacking of human beings that will take the world a scary step forward towards the perfectibility of a (potentially global) dictatorship – the setting up of an ‘authoritarian dream world’ whose ideology could spread around the world like a virus and whose legitimacy would be secured by the most comprehensive and powerful state surveillance apparatus in history.
For those of us who still value our freedoms, it is perhaps rather surprising that many people in China seem to welcome the SoCS, seeing it less as a monitoring tool than as an instrument for improving the quality of life and closing institutional and regulatory gaps. There would seem already to be a strong human instinct to surrender freedom for security. It will be no different in the reign of the monster.
However, there is one region of China where such social control is intensive but not welcomed by the indigenous population. Xinjiang is the largest subdivision of China, situated in the west and covering one-sixth of its land area, which makes it about the size of Iran. It is home to 10 million Uighur people, who are predominantly Muslim, and an increasing number of Han Chinese who have been encouraged to settle there. The Han Chinese may move around without difficulty, but the Uighur population is now subject to the most intense surveillance that the world has ever seen, to the extent that the capital city, Urumqi, has been described as a ‘digital fortress. Every movement, conversation, action and interaction, both offline and online, is recorded. ID cards are used to store not only DNA information but also the holder’s ‘reliability status’, an index of how well they fit into what the state considers normal. Any change in that status in the negative direction can lead to arrest and incarceration. There are cameras every few metres down every street and alleyway. Many are equipped not only with facial recognition technology but even with the capacity to read emotion on the faces of those we mentioned above. Cameras are now in existence that can track all kinds of bodily movements and even recognise people by their gait and gestures; they are identified, with over 90% accuracy we are told, without even having to look into the camera lens.
Surveillance of this kind is bad enough, but what is even more disturbing is a sinister attempt at what looks very much like thought control. It is facilitated by the setting up of so-called re-education centres, which (as of 2021) together house over 1.5 million Uighurs. They are sent there as a result of what is revealed by the surveillance apparatus. Many families have been split up – husbands taken from their wives, and children taken from their parents. These ‘re-education centres’ – prisons, really – appear to be devoted to the elimination of Uighur culture, turning their inmates into loyal Chinese citizens.’ Eyewitness reports coming out of the camps make grim reading. They tell of a total lack of privacy, even in toilets, except for the existence of a ‘Black Room’ that is used for unobserved vicious punishments and torture for even the most minor of infractions, such as not showing enough enthusiasm for the endless indoctrination. This is straight out of Orwell’s 1984 where the equivalent was Room 101 – the place of everyone’s worst fears. These centres would appear to represent an extreme violation of human rights; indeed, one commentator, a Ms Wang, said that human rights for the Uighur population were non-existent. Her report went on to say: “This is not just about Xinjiang or even China — it’s about the world beyond and whether we human beings can continue to have freedom in a world of connected devices. It’s a wake-up call, not just about China but about every one of us.” (pp. 352-355)
As Lennox states at various times in his book, much of this is somewhat speculative. We do not know for certain just how things will pan out exactly, nor how they might tie in with what is found in Revelation. But he does want us to at least think about where we are heading with our transhumanist, AI future and be alert. I certainly agree with him on that.
