What is AI?

To understand the world we are entering, we must move past the idea that AI is just a computer program. A traditional program is a list of rules written by a human. Modern AI is a neural network, a “digital brain.” It isn’t programmed with rules—rather it is trained, it grows. When a human baby is made, he or she is gifted by our Creator with a rather marvelous work of art: a beautiful brain, a blank slate of billions of neurons just waiting to build connections and patterns about the world. When AI researchers make an AI brain, they do something similar. Though less of a work of art, they still produce something breathtaking: a scaffold of billions of digital neurons just waiting to build connections and patterns about the world. A baby is born, grows, and forms these connections and patterns through a lifetime of experiences, steered by the will of his or her spirit. Similarly, an AI brain is trained on an internet’s worth of experiences, steered by the will of the AI researchers and its human evaluators.

We must further understand that unlike the grand mystery of the human person, digital brains have one earthly purpose. Their job is to predict the “next” thing: the next word in a sentence, the next line of code, the next pixel in an image. But that is not all they can predict. Newer AI brains can predict the next sound in a voice, the next physical movement of a robotic arm, the next protein in a sequence.

In nature, complex animals evolved over millions of years. Each generation required plenty of time to grow and mature and, finally, to reproduce. Very small changes occurred between each generation. Nevertheless, over very long periods of time, guided by the hand of God, these creatures evolved into beautiful works of art—bears, wolves, whales.

AI also evolves, but quicker. Much quicker. Each cycle is measured in weeks or months, not years. Furthermore, each generation can handle large and significant changes, as researchers are able to experiment liberally since survival is not a requirement. This leads to many, and far more frequent, “aha” moments in the evolutionary tree of digital life, resulting in a bewildering pace of innovation and capability. Compared to biology, AI is a lightning species.

And unlike biology, this evolution is turbocharged by a global economic engine that turns capital into capability. More money buys more compute. More compute buys bigger training runs, better data pipelines, stronger models, and faster iteration. In that system, investment doesn’t just fund progress: it accelerates the rate of intelligence itself.

Now consider the high-stakes geopolitical race, most notably between the United States and China, and the progress train becomes a runaway train. Neither side can afford to slow down for fear of being left behind by an adversary with a far more powerful weapon of progress. There is no “off” switch for what is happening. It is an unstoppable force of nature driven by math, money, and power. This is the underlying engine driving the eventualities we must now consider.