Church of God News

#EuroDig 2024: The @CoE Framework Convention on #AI and #HumanRights, #Democracy and the #RuleOfLaw – Earlier today @CoE’s Kristian Bartholin shared insights into the making of this groundbreaking instrument and its key provisions.#ResponsibleAIhttps://t.co/jnwKWR5QHA pic.twitter.com/ht19oE1Ren

— Council of Europe #AI (@CoE_DigitalGov) June 19, 2024

COGwriter

On September 5, 2024, I reported on this COGwriter Church of God News page that the European Union, United Kingdom, and United States agree on regulations related to Artificial Intelligence and warned that it was leading to the 666 Beast as it gave governments massive powers to use AI against those it wished to (see US, Britain, EU agree on first international treaty on Artificial Intelligence).

PCG is now also basically echoing that with a similar message:

The first international treaty on artificial intelligence (AI), signed on September 5, is so vague that it may seem inconsequential. But it is dangerous.

The treaty is titled “Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law.” It was signed by the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Andorra, Georgia, Iceland, Norway, Moldova, San Marino and Israel. Argentina, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, the Vatican, Japan, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay were also involved in negotiations.

“Each party shall adopt or maintain measures with a view to ensuring that activities within the lifecycle of artificial intelligence systems respect equality, including gender equality, and the prohibition of discrimination, as provided under applicable international and domestic law,” it states.

Every signatory is meant to ensure this happens; how exactly is not defined. One thing the Council of Europe finds annoying is that different countries allow different levels of freedom. The council’s website states:

The treaty covers the use of AI systems in the public sector—including companies acting on its behalf—and in the private sector. The convention offers parties two ways of complying with its principles and obligations when regulating the private sector: Parties may opt to be directly obliged by the relevant convention provisions or, as an alternative, take other measures to comply with the treaty’s provisions while fully respecting their international obligations regarding human rights, democracy and the rule of law. This approach is necessary because of the differences in legal systems around the world.

In other words, not every government can take absolute control, but they should go as far as they can. …

The strongest force behind the treaty was the EU, which already has its own AI Act. …

Instead of individual companies making decisions that you may be able to escape, international bodies set the standard. This could ensure that every chatbot teaches that there are more than two genders, climate change is real, and we all evolved from apes. They will say things like: “It’s important to note that evolutionary theory is not based on belief, but on empirical evidence that has been rigorously tested and validated by the scientific community over many decades” (perplexity.ai). https://www.thetrumpet.com/30106-the-dark-side-of-the-first-international-ai-treaty

This is basically a European project and that nations can violate it as they see fit by pointing to national security purposes–basically meaning governments can spy on everything they think they can with AI. Hence, the agreement does not provide true lasting protection.

Yes, this treaty is dangerous. Yes, many governments have already insisted that falsehoods are facts and that pointing out falsehoods and sins is “hate speech.”

Yet, the Bible teaches:

1 Cry aloud, spare not;
Lift up your voice like a trumpet;
Tell My people their transgression,
And the house of Jacob their sins. (Isaiah 58:1)

But many do not want that done.

We in the CCOG have been censored and face the threat of censorship online and elsewhere (see Preparing for the ‘Short Work’ and The Famine of the Word).

We keep seeing more censorship, direct and indirect, on the internet-this is resulting in less “freedom of the press.”

The old Worldwide Church of God correctly pointed out that loss of freedom of the press was prophesied:

THE MOST important work in the world cannot be done without freedom of the press!

What is that work?

It is the work of announcing that God will restore His Government to the whole earth! But before the Government of God is restored, it must first be announced! The good news of that announcement — the Gospel of the Kingdom of God — must be preached (Matthew 24:14) to all nations (Matthew 28:19). And the nations must choose whether they will want it or resist it.

In this day, God has made the MASS media available to accomplish His work. But reaching a mass audience with the good news of God’s soon-coming Government requires the freedom to PUBLISH. Notice Mark 13:10: “And the gospel must first be published among all nations.”

Further, God lays a special duty on his messenger and Church to publicly disseminate certain warnings to certain nations. Ezekiel 33:1-7 describes God’s charge upon the watchman. When the watchman sees “the sword” come upon the land — a prophetic symbol of military devastation — he must “blow the trumpet” or God will hold him personally responsible.

This duty requires that a message warning about some very unpleasant events be published as far and as wide as possible to the latter-day descendants of ancient nations.

Similarly, when God charged the prophet Jeremiah with a message, he also had an affirmative duty from God to spread it to as wide an audience as possible. Jeremiah was given a message so important he could hardly contain himself: “But his [God’s] word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones…” (Jeremiah 20:9).

So God’s servants really have no choice as to exercising the right to publish their message freely. Their message is not for their personal benefit — but to the whole world!

Governmental Reaction

And yet while the Bible places a duty on God’s servants, it also warns that this world — even now and in the future — will not always allow the freedom to publish.

In the past a government’s excuse for persecution was that God’s message IS TOO DISTURBING to be allowed to circulate freely.

In the Old Testament, Elijah, for example, was hauled before King Ahab for the ancient equivalent of the crime of disturbing the peace: “Ahab said unto him [Elijah], Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” (I Kings 18:17).
Elijah’s defense was that he wasn’t troubling Israel, only bringing some very distressing news from God to Ahab’s government (verse 18).

Likewise, the religious and political authorities of Amos’ day tried to subject him to “prior restraint” — from speaking his message at all — because the message he brought from God was TO CONTROVERSIAL!

“Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words…. Also Amaziah said unto Amos… prophesy not again any more at Bethel” (Amos 7:10, 12-13). Amaziah tried to deny Amos a forum for God’s message in ancient Israel. Amos’ message was too upsetting to the political and religious establishments!

The prophet Jeremiah was even subjected to an ancient form of book burning. God commanded Jeremiah to write down “all the words that I [God] have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations…” (Jeremiah 36:2).

Jeremiah put the words on a roll. Eventually, however, possession of the roll came to one of the king’s top aides, who read it to the king (verse 21). After reading “three or four leaves” of the scroll, the aide, ever eager to please a now distraught king, threw the roll into the fireplace (verse 23). Afterwards, the king attempted, unsuccessfully, to seize Jeremiah for putting God’s word to writing.

Earlier, Jeremiah had already endured actual imprisonment for the content of his spoken message (Jeremiah 20:2).

In the New Testament, the authorities tried to prevent the apostles from preaching the Gospel. The apostles were forcibly brought before the council. The high priest asked them: “Did not we straightly command you that you should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine…” (Acts 5:28).

In other words, the civil and religious authorities were seeking to regulate the content of their message!

In response, the apostle Peter declared the firm rule that “we ought to obey God rather than men” (verse 29). Since Peter and company had a God-ordained duty to say what they were saying, the commands of the civil government of Jerusalem were in direct conflict with God’s.

For the future, the Bible prophecy reveals that the time will come when most of this world’s nations will be led by Satan to abolish freedom of the press — and all related freedoms. Why? To prevent any publishing of God’s message from reaching any substantial number of people!

`Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it” (Amos 8:11-12).

Elsewhere the Bible reveals how this prophesied press clampdown will take place. Revelation 13 describes a great religious-civil power that will arise in the place of the old Roman Empire. This prophesied power will not allow free speech, a free press or the free exercise of any religion — except the official religion of the state.

Why Free Press Important

The Gospel is the good news of a government that will REPLACE the governments of this world. Yet replace is a mild word! The prophet Daniel flatly declares that the Government of God will “break in pieces and consume” the nations of this world that resist Him (Daniel 2:44).

The Gospel of the Kingdom of God proclaims that there is a higher power than human government, another and divine government to whom men, whether they know it or not, ultimately owe allegiance. For this reason early Christians were accused of doing “contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus” (Acts 17:7).

No wonder the governments of this world have historically sought to suppress the publishing of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God — for it is ultimately the news of their overthrow by Christ at His return!

Some have tried to justify the suppression of press freedom on the grounds that the free circulation of false ideas would create havoc for human government.”Lying opinions, than which no mental plague is greater,” wrote Pope Leo XIII, “and vices which corrupt the heart and moral life, should be diligently repressed by public authority, lest they insidiously work the ruin of the state.”

The key error is the failure to see the difference between the government of man and the government of God. God does not reveal the whole of His spiritual truth to society at large — only to those He calls (see Romans 8:30).

Man, cut off from God, cannot be trusted to pass judgment on whether God’s truth is, in fact, “true.” The Bible reveals that Satan has deceived “the whole world” (Revelation 12:9).

Christ said his true church would be a little flock, not a majority of the political community (Luke 12:32). Thus, no human government can ever be really certain that it can tell a “lying opinion” from a true one.

Because men’s minds are limited, men must have the truth revealed to them by God. When God doesn’t reveal it, as He doesn’t to most of society, the safest course open to humans is the greatest possible circulation of ideas. The Bible supports this idea when it declares: “Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the MULTITUDE of counselors there is safety” (Proverbs 11:14).

Even if false ideas circulate under freedom of the press, at least God’s Word will also be able to go out unhindered.

Free societies pay a very high price for freedom of the press — pornography circulates freely because human courts say they can’t really tell the difference between pornography and other kinds of writing or expression. This is a very high price — but at least it does insure the free circulation of God’s truth, as well as other religious ideas.

If you grant human government the authority to censor what is printed or spoken, you allow the government to stop any message it doesn’t approve of.

Government tried to suppress Elijah, Amos and Jeremiah; it is prophesied to suppress God’s true Gospel again in the future. The power to censor bad writing easily becomes the power to suppress good writing.

There is a reason why God began, and based, his end-time work in the country on earth where freedom of the press is greatest — and why God’s Church has grown the most, as a rule, in countries where press freedom is substantial. Since the spreading of God’s Word is the most important activity on earth — the preservation of freedom of the press is one of the most awesome responsibilities God lays on human government. (Calkins J. FREE PRESS IN THE BIBLE? Was It Prophesied? Plain Truth. May 1981)

The Philadelphia portion of the Church of God did begin in the USA and its most faithful remnant, the Continuing Church of God, is still based out of the USA.

But now, in the USA and especially out of it, we are seeing more and more calls for restrictions and censorship.

Europe wants to control AI, and to a degree it will.

However, do not believe that human rights will be properly protected, no matter what these rules purport to indicate.

The Bible shows that more improper censorship is coming:

11 “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God,
“That I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine of bread,
Nor a thirst for water,
But of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 They shall wander from sea to sea,
And from north to east;
They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
But shall not find it.  (Amos 8:11-12)

Artificial Intelligence will be involved in pulling proper religious content off the internet.

AI will also be used to persuade and deceive people (e.g., watch also Artificial Intelligence Superhuman Persuasion?).

We also know that financial controls are coming to Europe. The Apostle John was told by Jesus to write the following:

15 He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. 16 He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

18 Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666. (Revelation 13:15-18)

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 16th, 2024 at 3:00 pm and is filed under COG News.

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