The AI Cold War Is Already Here

The AI Cold War Is Already Here

PNW STAFF

China’s reaction to a recent warning from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei revealed how quickly the debate over artificial intelligence has become a struggle for global power.

Amodei urged democratic nations to slow the development of the most dangerous frontier systems while preventing China from closing the technological gap. Beijing’s state-backed Global Times responded by accusing him of disguising an American containment strategy as concern for public safety. It called his proposals a “Cold War playbook” intended to preserve U.S. dominance and restrict China’s technological rise.

The accusation may have been intended as a rebuke, but it also described the world more accurately than Beijing probably intended.

The AI Cold War is already here.

Artificial intelligence is creating the same dilemma on a far broader scale. The nation that achieves a commanding AI advantage may gain more than a superior weapon. It could acquire the ability to penetrate enemy networks, accelerate weapons research, control autonomous military systems, manipulate foreign populations and outperform competing economies.

America’s political leaders can debate how quickly AI should advance and what guardrails are necessary. What they cannot do is assume that China, Russia, North Korea, Iran or any other adversary will stop developing it simply because Washington decides the technology has become too dangerous.

Every American attempt to slow down risks becoming an opportunity for someone else to surge ahead.

Nuclear weapons require enriched material, specialized facilities, missile systems and an enormous industrial footprint. Governments can monitor uranium shipments, photograph launch sites and inspect suspected nuclear facilities. Even a stolen weapons design must still be transformed into a functioning bomb.

AI can cross borders as code.

Advanced capabilities can be stolen through cyberattacks, copied by insiders, extracted through repeated interaction with existing models or recreated by rival laboratories. Anthropic recently said it uncovered industrial-scale efforts by three Chinese AI companies—DeepSeek, Moonshot and MiniMax—to extract Claude’s capabilities to improve their own systems.

American security agencies have also warned AI companies to defend themselves against foreign knowledge-distillation campaigns intended to close the technological gap. The struggle is no longer limited to research papers and semiconductor production. It includes espionage, model theft, computing infrastructure and the race to attract the world’s best scientists.

The deeper problem is that competition creates its own momentum. Each new Chinese capability becomes justification for another American advance. Each American breakthrough becomes evidence in Beijing that China must accelerate. Safety measures are interpreted as containment, while warnings about catastrophe are dismissed as propaganda.

That is how arms races become self-sustaining.

Power Without Wisdom

The prophetic danger extends beyond which flag flies over the world’s most powerful AI laboratory. Scripture describes a final period marked by extraordinary deception and concentrated control over commerce and human activity. AI is not itself the system described in Revelation, but it could help make such a system technologically possible.

Digital identity, biometric surveillance, programmable money, autonomous enforcement and worldwide information control become far more powerful when joined by an intelligence capable of analyzing every transaction, movement, relationship and expression of dissent.

Humanity is acquiring extraordinary power without acquiring the moral character necessary to use it wisely. Every nation insists it needs greater capabilities because its enemies are pursuing them. Every safeguard is weakened by the fear that someone else will ignore it.

The first Cold War left humanity living beneath the shadow of a weapon capable of destroying the world. The AI Cold War may leave us beneath the authority of a system capable of controlling it.

More...

Saudi Arabia appeals to Israel for help against Houthis – report

Saudi Arabia appeals to Israel for help against Houthis – report

World Israel News Staff

Saudi Arabia has reportedly sought intelligence assistance from Israel as Riyadh scrambles to contain a rapid Houthi advance toward one of the world’s most important shipping routes, while the Trump administration weighs whether deteriorating conditions could eventually require direct US military intervention.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approached Israel indirectly through US Central Command, requesting intelligence and other assistance that could help prevent the Iran-backed Houthis from closing the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, Israel Hayom reported Sunday, citing diplomatic officials in the region.Brent crude climbed more than 3% Monday to roughly $108 per barrel, with the combination of attacks on Saudi infrastructure and threats to shipping around both Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb fueling renewed fears over global supplies.

The reported approach represents an unusual instance of behind-the-scenes cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which still do not have formal diplomatic relations.

According to the report, Riyadh has simultaneously appealed directly to Egypt and other Gulf states as it seeks regional support against the Houthis.

The Saudi effort comes after Houthi forces made their biggest territorial gains in years, seizing the strategic port of Mokha and Perim Island, also known as Mayun, which sits inside the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

The advances have given the group an increasingly powerful position from which to threaten shipping between the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The strait has become especially important because the continuing US-Iran war has already severely disrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula.

Saudi Arabia has increasingly depended on its East-West pipeline and Red Sea ports to bypass Hormuz and keep crude exports moving.

That alternative route is now under pressure as well.

Houthi drone attacks prompted Saudi Arabia to temporarily shut its East-West pipeline, which transports crude from the kingdom’s eastern oil-producing regions to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.

Reuters reported Monday that the outage threatens as much as 4% of global oil supply, while inventories at Yanbu were estimated to be sufficient for only five to seven days of exports.

The Saudi crown prince has warned regional governments that a Houthi blockade of Bab al-Mandeb would be far more than a Saudi problem, according to Israel Hayom. Riyadh has argued that disruption there could inflict severe damage on international trade and the broader global economy.

Egypt has a particularly strong interest in keeping the waterway open because ships passing through Bab al-Mandeb continue north through the Red Sea toward the Suez Canal, a major source of revenue for Cairo. Israel’s southern port of Eilat also depends on access through the same shipping corridor.

The reported overture to Israel follows a much more public Saudi appeal to Washington.

Bin Salman spoke with US President Donald Trump at least twice Thursday and sought American military assistance against the Houthis, three sources familiar with the discussions told Reuters. Trump did not agree to launch US strikes, but Washington offered Riyadh intelligence sharing and targeting assistance.

CBS News reported that bin Salman personally pressed Trump for military action and that Saudi Arabia was trying to assemble a broader coalition against the Houthis. CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper traveled to Saudi Arabia for coordination talks as the crisis deepened.

A senior Trump administration official told Reuters that Washington remained focused on “ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea” while allowing regional partners to take the leading role in dealing with local security threats.

For now, that has meant intelligence and targeting support rather than American bombs.

But US involvement could expand if the Houthis further militarize their new positions overlooking Bab al-Mandeb. Israel Hayom reported that Washington is considering possible airstrikes if the Houthis deploy missile launchers and radar systems capable of threatening international shipping from the areas they recently captured.

“The condition for that would be the deployment of radars and missile launchers in the captured positions,” an official familiar with the deliberations told the newspaper.

ABC News similarly reported that two US officials said there were no immediate plans for direct strikes but cautioned that the administration’s position could change if the threat to Red Sea shipping significantly worsens.

The Supreme Court Will Decide: Can a City Use Red Tape To Kill Your Bible Study?

The Supreme Court Will Decide: Can a City Use Red Tape To Kill Your Bible Study?

Nathan Moelker

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear one of the most consequential religious liberty cases in years – and the ACLJ has filed to make sure the Court gets it right.

Grand v. City of University Heights, Ohio asks a deceptively simple question with sweeping implications: Can a municipality shut down a small, home-based Jewish religious gathering through an escalating campaign of bureaucratic pressure, and then escape any federal accountability simply because it never issued a final, formal denial?

The Sixth Circuit said yes. We are asking the Supreme Court to say no. We filed in support of the cert petition, and now the high Court is taking and reviewing this important case on the merits.

Mr. Grand, a Jewish resident, sought a permit to host a small Jewish prayer quorum – a minyan – in his own home. Instead, he faced a campaign of governmental pressure: hostile hearings, demands for architectural drawings, escalating administrative requirements, and open hostility that made continuing the process untenable. When Mr. Grand, worn down and financially drained, withdrew his application, the Sixth Circuit didn’t blame the city. It blamed him – holding that he was “the author of any chilling effect on his First Amendment interests.”

That is exactly backward. Our brief identifies two independent errors, each serious enough on its own to warrant reversal. First, the Sixth Circuit borrowed a “finality requirement” from Williamson County – a Takings Clause case about calculating economic loss from property regulation – and grafted it onto a First Amendment and Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) claim.

But constitutional harm to religious exercise isn’t like a takings claim. When government pressure causes a reasonable person to cancel a prayer service or abandon a small-group Jewish gathering, the injury is complete the moment it happens. It doesn’t wait for a zoning board to finish its paperwork – and RLUIPA’s own text confirms Congress meant to address ongoing government conduct, not just final decisions.

Second, and just as troubling, this rule doesn’t burden everyone equally. Large, well-funded religious institutions with legal departments can absorb years of administrative proceedings to satisfy a finality requirement. The homeowner hosting a weekly prayer group cannot. Under the Sixth Circuit’s rule, the very smallness and informality that define home-based religious practice become the reasons it loses federal protection.

Our brief draws on the ACLJ’s own experience defending home-based worship across the country. We’ve seen it in Fairfax County, Virginia, where officials proposed crippling home Bible studies. We’ve seen it in Georgia, where a retired couple was told their home ministry violated zoning law. We’ve seen it in Manhattan Beach, California, where a resident was told he could host 100 people to watch The Lord of the Rings – but not to gather for worship.

In every one of these cases, the government backed down before ever issuing a “final decision.” Under the Sixth Circuit’s rule, none of these victims of religious discrimination would ever have had access to a federal courtroom – because the harassment stopped just short of a formal ruling. That result doesn’t protect religious liberty. It rewards municipalities for using process itself as the weapon.

This case is not just about one man’s Jewish prayer group in Ohio. Home-based religious gatherings – prayer quorums, Bible studies, fellowship groups – are central to how millions of Americans, across Jewish and Christian traditions alike, practice their faith. If the Sixth Circuit’s rule stands, any city hall in the country has a blueprint for shutting down a religious gathering: apply pressure, escalate demands, and never issue a final decision. No formal denial, no lawsuit, no accountability.

The ACLJ’s brief urges the Supreme Court to reverse the Sixth Circuit and restore RLUIPA’s true protections. We will keep fighting to ensure that no American has to choose between their faith and their front door.

The Kill Switch Beneath The Ocean

The Kill Switch Beneath The Ocean

PNW STAFF

The opening strike of the next major war may not be a missile exploding over a city. It could happen silently, thousands of feet beneath the ocean, as specialized submarines sever the fiber-optic cables carrying the modern world’s most important communications.

No fireball would appear on television. No invading army would cross a border. Yet banks could lose contact with overseas markets, cloud services could become unreachable, shipping networks could be disrupted, military communications could be degraded, and entire countries could suddenly find themselves digitally isolated.

That nightmare moved closer to reality this spring when Russian vessels reportedly practiced deploying technology designed to disable critical undersea cables near Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.

Russia Rehearses Beneath The Waves

According to Reuters, British, Norwegian and American forces tracked and confronted Russian vessels involved in the alleged operation. Western officials said deep-sea submersibles simulated deploying sophisticated equipment capable of damaging undersea infrastructure.

The exercise was reportedly conducted by Russia’s Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research, better known as GUGI. Despite its scientific-sounding name, GUGI is a highly secretive military organization associated with submarine surveillance, seabed mapping and operations involving foreign communications infrastructure.

No cables were damaged, and Russia has not confirmed the Western account. But Norway had already warned that Russian vessels were mapping critical infrastructure and developing the ability to threaten it at extreme depths.

The operation looks less like ordinary intelligence gathering and more like preparation for a future option: the ability to disconnect an enemy before attacking it.

The Internet Is Not Floating In The Cloud

Most people imagine the internet as a wireless system carried by satellites and invisible signals. In reality, the international internet is overwhelmingly physical.

More than 99 percent of international data traffic moves through submarine telecommunications cables. Hundreds of cable systems stretch across the seabed, linking continents and carrying financial transactions, government communications, video calls, corporate data and cloud traffic.

Satellites are important, but they cannot absorb anything close to the enormous volume carried by fiber-optic cables. Even services such as Starlink depend on ground stations, terrestrial networks and command systems that could also be attacked.

The cloud has an address—and much of the road leading to it runs along the bottom of the ocean.

Cut The Cables, Cripple The World

A single damaged cable would not shut down the internet. Cable breaks occur regularly because of anchors, fishing activity, earthquakes and other accidents. Traffic is generally redirected while repair ships restore the connection.

A coordinated wartime attack would be entirely different. An adversary could target several major routes simultaneously while launching cyberattacks against data centers, power grids and telecommunications providers. Satellites and ground stations could also come under attack, limiting the systems expected to provide backup connectivity.

The result might not be a complete global blackout, but it could produce severe congestion, regional isolation and cascading failures across systems that were never designed to operate independently for long.

International payments could stall. Companies could lose access to overseas servers and customer records. Airlines and shipping firms could struggle to coordinate operations. Governments could have difficulty communicating with allies. Hospitals, utilities and emergency agencies could lose access to outside platforms and information.

Even organizing the response would become harder if the communications systems needed to coordinate repairs were themselves failing.

AI And Surveillance: The Prophetic Implications Are Becoming Harder To Ignore

Apple Says It Isn't Recording You — But Its AI Is Still Listening

 PNW STAFF

Imagine sitting across from a friend at lunch. You talk about your marriage, your health, something happening at work, or perhaps a financial problem you haven't told many people about.

There is no recorder sitting on the table. Nobody has pulled out a phone. Nobody has asked permission to capture the conversation.

But the watch on your friend's wrist may be listening anyway.

Welcome to the next stage of artificial intelligence.

Apple's newly announced Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 introduce what the company calls "Audio Intelligence" — a collection of features capable of continuously processing sounds and conversations occurring around the person wearing the device.

One feature, Live Rewind, allows users to double-press the Digital Crown and retrieve a text snippet of what was said during the previous 15 seconds. Another, Siri Recap, can listen to conversations and use artificial intelligence to generate summaries that users can review later.

Apple describes the purpose innocently enough: helping people remember something they missed, recall an important conversation, or remain engaged in the moment without constantly taking notes.

And there is little doubt that millions of people will find it useful.

But something much bigger is happening here.

We are rapidly normalizing a world in which artificial intelligence doesn't merely wait for us to ask it a question.

It listens to our lives.

When did we decide it was normal for the computers attached to our bodies to listen to the conversations happening around us?

"We're Not Recording You" Isn't Quite As Comforting As It Sounds

Apple can technically say there isn't a recording because the raw audio isn't preserved as a conventional audio file.

But consider what the technology is actually capable of doing.

The microphone hears words. A computer analyzes them. Speech can be converted into text. Artificial intelligence determines what was important. A summary can be generated. That summary can then be saved for future reference.

To the person sitting across the table, the technical distinction between "recording" and "continuously processing" may not feel terribly reassuring.

If you tell someone something at lunch and an artificial intelligence system later produces a written summary of what you discussed, the fact that the original sound waves were deleted doesn't change the fundamental reality:

A machine was listening.

And you may never have agreed to it.

The Person Being Listened To Didn't Buy The Watch

This may become the most uncomfortable part of the entire experiment.

The Apple Watch owner chose to purchase the device. The owner chose to enable Siri Recap.

Everyone else in the room did not.

Imagine the implications in a doctor's office, counseling session, business meeting, classroom, church gathering, restaurant, family argument, political discussion or private conversation between friends.

Someone else's wearable computer may increasingly become an invisible third participant in the conversation.

Live Rewind at least announces its activation with a chime and visual indicator. Siri Recap, however, is designed to operate according to the settings chosen by the watch owner. Apple tells users to be mindful of people around them, but the technology itself illustrates how quickly our traditional expectations of privacy are changing.

The smartphone introduced the possibility that nearly everyone carries a camera and recording device.

Wearable AI takes another step.

You no longer have to deliberately pull out the recorder.

The recorder — or more precisely, the listening computer — is already attached to your body.

Surveillance Is Becoming A Consumer Product

There was a time when building a surveillance society required enormous resources.

Governments needed informants, investigators, wiretaps, cameras, intelligence agencies and enormous databases. Someone had to collect the information, someone had to examine it, and someone had to decide what mattered.

Artificial intelligence changes the economics of surveillance.

Machines can potentially examine information generated by millions — eventually billions — of sensors simultaneously. They can transcribe conversations, recognize faces, identify objects, detect patterns, correlate locations and search enormous amounts of information in seconds.

And increasingly, governments don't even have to install all the sensors.

We are installing them ourselves.

We put microphones in our homes.

Cameras on our doorbells.

Location trackers in our pockets.

Internet connections in our cars.

Biometric sensors on our wrists.

And increasingly, artificial intelligence behind all of them.

The great technological revolution of our generation may not be that Big Brother forced a surveillance device into every home.

It may be that consumers lined up to buy one because it was incredibly convenient.

The Prophetic Implications Are Becoming Harder To Ignore

Christians should recognize the extraordinary technological environment being constructed around us.

Revelation describes a future system capable of exercising unprecedented control over economic participation — determining who can buy and sell. Previous generations could understand the theological meaning of that warning while struggling to imagine how such comprehensive control could practically function across entire populations.

Our generation doesn't have nearly as much difficulty imagining it.

Digital identity can establish who you are. Biometrics can authenticate you. Digital currencies and payment networks can control transactions. Smartphones can reveal where you are. Cameras equipped with facial recognition can identify you. Artificial intelligence can analyze enormous populations in real time.

And now the devices attached to our bodies are learning to listen to the world around us.

The technological building blocks for a society capable of unprecedented identification, surveillance and economic control are no longer science fiction. They are increasingly ordinary features of everyday life.

And perhaps the most sobering part is how they are arriving.

Not primarily through coercion.

Through convenience.

Every new device promises to make life easier. Every new sensor offers another useful feature. Every additional piece of information makes artificial intelligence more helpful.

Until one day we may discover that we have constructed an infrastructure capable of knowing where we go, what we buy, what we see — and increasingly, even what we say.

Apple says its new watch isn't recording you.

Technically, that may be true.

But its artificial intelligence is listening.

And the larger question is whether we are becoming comfortable living in a world where machines are always within earshot.