Last week, utility giant American Electric Power announced it was dramatically expanding its long-term investment plans because of exploding electricity demand from artificial intelligence data centers.
At roughly the same time, OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank continued advancing enormous AI infrastructure projects tied to what has been described as potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in investment. OpenAI itself openly states that it is building “the compute infrastructure for the Intelligence Age.”
That phrase should make people stop and think.
“The Intelligence Age.”
Not simply faster computers or better software, but an entirely new era centered around machine-generated intelligence.
Most Americans still think artificial intelligence is little more than chatbots writing essays or apps creating funny images online. Behind the scenes, however, something far larger is taking shape. Massive AI data centers are being built across the United States, consuming staggering amounts of electricity, water, land, and computational power while governments and corporations race to dominate what many believe will become the defining technology of the century.
Artificial intelligence is not becoming just another industry. It is becoming the infrastructure layer for modern civilization itself.
Finance, surveillance, military systems, banking, commerce, media, transportation, healthcare, and communication are all moving toward deeper AI integration. The systems being constructed today will eventually influence nearly every aspect of daily life tomorrow.
That reality alone should force thoughtful people — especially Christians — to ask difficult questions.
Because history gives us absolutely no reason to blindly trust fallen humanity with civilization-altering technology absent moral restraint.
Every major technological advancement eventually becomes a weapon in the hands of evil men. The airplane became a bomber. Radio became propaganda. Television became mass programming. Nuclear science became Hiroshima. The internet became surveillance. Social media became psychological warfare. Smartphones became tracking devices capable of monitoring human behavior at astonishing levels.
And now we are supposed to believe artificial intelligence will somehow become the first major technology powerful people choose not to abuse?
That is not optimism. That is historical amnesia.
The frightening thing about artificial intelligence is not merely that it may surpass human capability in certain tasks. The frightening thing is that sinful humanity is building systems of unprecedented power while simultaneously experiencing deep moral, cultural, and spiritual confusion.
Artificial intelligence can already analyze speech patterns, predict behavior, imitate voices, generate realistic synthetic video, process enormous quantities of personal data, and shape the information billions of people consume every single day. Combine those capabilities with facial recognition systems, biometric databases, digital currencies, predictive algorithms, and centralized platforms controlling communication and commerce, and suddenly the conversation becomes far more serious than most people want to admit.
For decades, skeptics mocked Christians for believing the Bible described a future world system capable of unprecedented control over commerce and society. Previous generations lacked the technological infrastructure for such centralized systems to exist on a global scale.
We no longer do.
That does not mean artificial intelligence itself is the “mark of the beast,” nor does it mean Christians should descend into paranoia every time a new technology emerges. But pretending these systems could never be used for authoritarian purposes ignores both human history and common sense.
The twentieth century alone demonstrated how dangerous centralized political power can become. Stalin, Mao, and Hitler oversaw regimes responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people — and none of them possessed artificial intelligence, predictive surveillance systems, facial recognition, biometric tracking, or real-time digital monitoring.
Now imagine if Hitler had AI-powered surveillance systems capable of identifying every Jewish family in Europe instantly. Imagine facial recognition connected to national databases. Imagine predictive algorithms flagging political dissidents before they acted. Imagine autonomous monitoring systems operating 24 hours a day without fatigue, hesitation, or mercy.
The scale of evil would have been almost unimaginable.
That is not conspiracy theory. It is the reality that technology amplifies human capability — both for good and for evil.
And perhaps the most revealing aspect of this moment is the mindset driving much of the technological revolution itself. Increasingly, some leaders within Silicon Valley speak in language that sounds less like engineering and more like theology. Discussions surrounding artificial general intelligence, transhumanism, and the merging of man with machine are no longer confined to science fiction. These conversations are now taking place among some of the wealthiest and most influential people on earth.
Christians should recognize the temptation underneath all of it.
From the Tower of Babel onward, humanity has repeatedly attempted to transcend its God-given limitations through power, knowledge, and self-glorification. Scripture warns that mankind continually drifts toward the belief that human ingenuity can ultimately replace dependence upon God. The modern technological age has not eliminated that temptation. It has amplified it.
What makes this moment particularly dangerous is that our technological power is accelerating faster than our moral maturity.
We live in a civilization capable of generating synthetic human speech and artificial reality within seconds while simultaneously struggling to define basic truths about identity, family, and human nature itself. We possess more information than any civilization in history, yet truth itself feels increasingly unstable. Artificial intelligence is emerging at the exact same moment Western culture is losing confidence in objective morality altogether.
That combination should concern every rational person.
None of this means Christians should reject technology or retreat from society. Artificial intelligence will undoubtedly contribute to scientific discoveries and medical advancements. But Christians are not called to blindly worship innovation simply because it is new, profitable, or impressive.
We are called to exercise discernment.
Because the greatest danger of artificial intelligence may not ultimately be the machine itself. The greatest danger may be humanity’s growing belief that with enough knowledge, enough power, and enough technological sophistication, it no longer needs God at all.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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