By Bob Maginnis

OpenAI recently released a 37-page report, Disrupting Malicious Uses of AI, documenting how criminals and state-linked actors are already exploiting generative AI to conduct fraud, impersonation, and influence operations. Romance scams are now scripted by machines. Fake legal identities are fabricated with bureaucratic precision. Foreign adversaries use AI to refine propaganda and calibrate narratives for maximum psychological impact.

None of this is theoretical. The architecture of deception is being rebuilt, brick by digital brick.

But the deeper danger lies beneath those headlines.

These AI tools are being deployed inside social media ecosystems that dozens of state attorneys general allege were deliberately engineered to be addictive. Internal documents disclosed in litigation against major platforms reveal that executives understood how algorithmic feeds stimulate dopamine responses — particularly in adolescents — yet continued optimizing for engagement over truth. We built platforms designed to capture attention at any cost. Now we are arming them with persuasion machines.

That is not a technology story. That is a civilization-level moral crisis.

Scripture has long anticipated this moment. Jesus warned, “See that no one leads you astray” (Matthew 24:4) and added that “many false prophets will arise and lead many astray” (Matthew 24:11). Paul wrote plainly that “evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13). Isaiah pronounced judgment on those who “call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). Technology does not create sin. But history confirms it can accelerate sin beyond any prior human capacity.

Artificial intelligence dramatically lowers the cost of deception while algorithmic platforms dramatically amplify its reach. Together they form a compounding loop: manipulation becomes cheaper, distribution becomes frictionless, and correction becomes nearly impossible. A lie crosses a continent before the truth has tied its shoes — and now the lie is written, targeted, and delivered by software that never sleeps.

In my book “The New AI Cold War,” I argue that the defining contest of this century is not merely geopolitical — it is civilizational. The conflict pits liberty-centered systems grounded in human dignity against authoritarian systems that weaponize information and treat citizens as programmable inputs. China’s social credit infrastructure and Russia’s disinformation apparatus are the most visible expressions of this model. But the temptation to centralize control through technology is not exclusive to tyrants. Free societies face a parallel seduction: the idol of efficiency, dressed in the language of innovation.

Psalm 94:20 asks, “Can wicked rulers be allied with you, those who frame injustice by statute?” When manipulation is baked into digital architecture under the banner of progress, injustice ceases to be episodic. It becomes systemic.

OpenAI’s report confirms that malicious actors are not inventing new tactics; they are scaling ancient ones. Social engineering becomes hyper-personalized. Fraud becomes cinematically convincing. Deepfakes dissolve the evidentiary value of video. Propaganda adapts to individual psychology in real time. AI does not generate evil intent; it exponentially multiplies the human capacity to act on it.

When that capability is embedded inside platforms engineered to exploit emotional vulnerability through infinite scroll and outrage algorithms, the result is not simply misinformation. It is the systematic conditioning of a population. Attention fragments. Discernment weakens. Shared moral reasoning — the very substrate of self-governance — corrodes.

Ephesians 6:12 reminds us that the struggle is “not against flesh and blood” but against principalities and powers operating through earthly means. Daniel understood this. Babylon conquered Israel not only with armies but by reshaping identity: renaming captives, re-educating them, redefining their loyalties (Daniel 1). Today’s algorithmic systems pursue the same objective at a civilizational scale — filtering reality, shaping belief, and redirecting allegiance, not through proclamation but through 10,000 micro-interactions per day.

Revelation 13:17 warns of systems that control commerce as instruments of coercion. The principle reaches beyond prophecy: any centralized technological system, divorced from moral restraint and human accountability, becomes a mechanism of control.

The response requires action on four fronts. Christians must recover disciplined discernment. “Test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1) — not every innovation deserves trust. Policymakers must treat AI-enabled influence operations as national security threats of the first order, because information integrity is now strategic infrastructure. Digital platforms must face enforceable accountability, transparency, independent auditing, and liability for AI-assisted fraud are not anti-innovation, they are pro-liberty. And families and churches must reclaim the discipline of attention: “Be sober-minded; be watchful” (1 Peter 5:8). What captures attention eventually shapes character.

The first Cold War was won because free people recognized tyranny and refused accommodation. The AI Cold War demands the same clarity, not only geopolitical resolve, but moral courage rooted in permanent truths.

Genesis 1:27 is the foundation: men and women are made in the image of God. Systems that reduce persons to engagement metrics or behavioral profiles assault that dignity at its source. The architects of those systems, whether in Beijing or Silicon Valley — are not neutral technologists. They are making a claim about what human beings are for. That claim must be answered.

“Stand firm therefore,” Paul wrote, “having fastened on the belt of truth” (Ephesians 6:14). In an age when persuasion can be automated and reality fabricated; truth will not defend itself. It must be defended by people who understand what is at stake — and who have the courage to say so.

Robert L. Maginnis is a retired U.S. Army infantry officer, a national security analyst, a senior fellow for National Security with Family Research Council, and author of 14 books, including “AI for Mankind’s Future” (2025) and his forthcoming book, “The New AI Cold War.” He speaks and writes at the intersection of faith, policy, and strategic affairs. This piece was originally published here.