Continuing Church of God 64
AI-Made Viruses, the Fourth Horseman, and a Coming Mark of the Beast with Dr. Bob Thiel
Dr. Bob Thiel joins host Steve Dupuis to trace reports of AI-engineered viruses and rogue artificial intelligence back to Bible prophecies of pestilence, the fourth horseman of Revelation, and a coming digital mark of the beast.
AI's Biological Threat Emerges
Steve Dupuis opens the Bible News Prophecy program by asking Dr. Bob Thiel whether artificial intelligence poses real risks to people today. Thiel points to a headline he saw the day before, "AI's Greatest Threat is Biological," which describes an Anthropic researcher who resigned after concluding there is roughly a ten percent chance AI could wipe out humanity within three to ten years, an estimate he says others in the field share. Thiel explains the article's greatest alarm is not runaway machines but biological warfare and synthetic biology, warning that artificial intelligence could eventually help produce a virus lethal to people whether they are vaccinated or not. Dupuis presses further, asking how close AI actually is to creating a genuine bioweapon risk, setting up Thiel's account of a specific study that turned that abstract worry into a documented, unsettling result.
Stanford's AI-Made Viruses
Thiel tells Dupuis that last month a report described artificial intelligence creating sixteen new viruses that never existed in nature, after the system learned patterns from nine trillion nucleotides in research associated with Stanford University. He explains that scientists have synthesized viruses for decades to study disease and pursue medical advances, but artificial intelligence now lets them generate viral genomes unlike anything found in nature. Thiel reads a line from the researchers themselves, that the ability to compose viral genomes using generative AI now exists while the governance to safely steer it does not. Dupuis asks whether this research is simply a hopeful step toward medical progress, and Thiel answers cautiously, recalling that COVID is presumed by some to have come from a lab pursuing similarly well-intentioned work. He warns that a rogue AI program could misuse such techniques, adding that turning biological agents into weapons has never been difficult for determined nations, the United States included, despite official denials of biological weapons programs.
Prophecies Of Pestilence And The Pale Horse
Thiel turns to scripture, citing Jesus's words in Matthew 24:7-8 that famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places mark the beginning of sorrows. He argues that biological warfare agents, whether engineered by AI or developed by humans alone, could easily be a factor in that prophesied pestilence. Thiel then reads from Revelation chapter six, where the fourth seal opens and a pale horse appears, its rider named Death, with Hades following behind and given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, by hunger, by death, and by the beasts of the earth. He notes that pestilence naturally falls under that last category. Dupuis asks directly whether AI-developed pathogens could be part of the pestilences riding with that fourth horseman, and Thiel answers without hesitation that they absolutely could, tying the ancient apocalyptic image to the modern headlines about synthetic viruses and rogue programs discussed earlier in the conversation.
Raymond McNair's Doomsday Bug
Thiel widens the discussion by reading from a 1969 article by the late Church of God evangelist Raymond McNair, titled The Doomsday Bug, which described a feverish international search for germs and chemicals capable of wiping out whole nations overnight. He recounts McNair's visit to a chemical and biological warfare laboratory and his survey of history, noting that people have used such weapons against enemies for thousands of years, from poisoning rulers' food and water supplies and using poisoned arrows in battle to catapulting corpses of plague victims over the walls of besieged cities. Thiel adds McNair's account of early American settlers trading plague-infected blankets to Native Americans on the frontier, calling it evidence of what he describes as humanity's virtually limitless inventive genius for destructive weapons of warfare. Dupuis listens as Thiel stresses that none of this diabolical history required artificial intelligence, underscoring that the danger long predates today's technology and only grows sharper with it.
Plagues, Crop Warfare, And Historical Scale
Asked about the magnitude of past viruses and plagues, Thiel cites the Black Death, the bubonic plague that wiped out roughly a third of Europe, with three-quarters dead in some regions, and cites a Cold War-era claim that a single gram of Q fever-inoculated chicken embryo could infect more than a million people. He adds that twenty million people died of flu at the close of World War I, with about fifty times that number falling ill. Thiel then describes chemical and biological warfare aimed at economies rather than armies, recalling that the highest US civilian award once given went to a woman who developed a deadly rice blast fungus usable against rice-dependent nations, while Russian scientists developed a wheat rust capable of striking American crops. He argues scientists bear real responsibility for developing microbes that could unleash horrifying epidemics, then cites Jesus's warning in Matthew 24:21 of a coming great tribulation unlike any before or after it.
Digital Wallets And The Coming Mark
Thiel turns to a second AI risk beyond pestilence, warning that AI programs may increasingly break into financial systems and drain accounts as world commerce grows more digital. He predicts a European leader could respond by proposing a biometric system to guard against such AI-driven economic disasters, noting that all twenty-seven European Union nations must offer residents a digital wallet holding identification and driver's license information on their phones by the end of 2026. Thiel suggests that system may prove insufficient, speculating that a future leader could push a more secure mark involving the right hand or forehead for safer buying and selling. He reads Revelation 13:15-18, describing the image of the beast compelling everyone, small and great, rich and poor, to receive a mark permitting commerce, numbered 666, then cites 1 Thessalonians 5:3's warning that sudden destruction follows cries of peace and safety. He closes citing Revelation 16:2's warning against taking the mark, before Dupuis thanks him and points listeners to biblenewsprophecy.net.
