The newest tech tsunami consuming society is artificial intelligence, commonly known as “AI.” People seem to experience AI in two ways: confusion or consternation.
Those confused by AI may be mildly frustrated by their lack of information and misconceptions about what AI actually does. On the other hand, those experiencing consternation may be worried or distressed. They think they understand what it can do and what it might mean to their personal future.
On a recent episode of The Epoch Times’s “American Thought Leaders,” Wynton Hall, author of “Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI,” shared that 99 percent of people use AI in features like weather apps and streaming services, but 64 percent don’t realize they’re using it.
“The coming decade will not be defined by a single concussive AI blast that levels life as we know it. Instead, it will unfold through a cascade of fractal disruptions, each repeating the same pattern: simple code unleashing complex changes across layer after layer of everyday life,” he predicted.
Of the many salient points Hall makes in his compelling book, two stand out. Whichever country achieves AI superiority will become the most powerful nation on earth; and second, opting out of AI is futile. Unlike refusing to use ecommerce, engage on social media, or communicate via email, sitting out AI is not a choice. The AI train has already left the station.
Fast and Vast
Hall noted that “Code Red” was not written as a doomsday book, but he acknowledges that the vast potential of AI encompasses both “landmines” and “roses.” He urges readers to “future-proof” themselves by confronting the politics and power of AI before it reshapes our world.
The politics of AI refer to Silicon Valley as the epicenter of AI innovation—an area renowned for its left-of-center ideologies and a belief that global governance and technology are mankind’s salvation. The power of AI involves the elimination of time and cost as barriers to gaining expertise, as well as the pace at which AI is advancing—far faster than society can adapt.
For instance, Language Learning Models, or LLMs, are advanced computer programs that understand and generate human language. LLMs learn by absorbing massive amounts of text and recognizing patterns in words and ideas.
Hall writes that an advanced AI program can consume 8 trillion words in a single month—about 1,000 times as much text as a human could read nonstop in a lifetime. Hall believes that this speed creates both opportunities (“roses”) and danger (“landmines”).
In each chapter, he analyzes the challenges that AI presents and offers a blueprint for converting those challenges into opportunities. His chapters include a smorgasbord of important topics:
Why proponents of AI support universal basic income (UBI) or guaranteed minimum income (GMI); how the United States can use AI to promote American values and compete with China in the AI arms race; the challenges AI poses to education and how it can be managed to promote education solutions; how AI will reshape warfare and terrorism while strengthening national security; the dangers of digital sexualization and how to protect children; how AI can improve government efficiency and downsize bureaucracies; and what role faith can play when AI and human values clash.
How Impartial?
Hall believes that AI is more than a tech revolution. He asserts that it’s ushering in a cultural revolution because Big Tech elites in Silicon Valley are leading the charge by subtly encoding values and biases into AI programs like ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Microsoft’s Copilot.
Artificial Intelligence offers both opportunities and pitfalls for mankind. An example he shared was a comprehensive 2024 study by a machine learning researcher who analyzed 24 popular chatbots using 11 political orientation tests. Suffice it to say that if the chatbots were voting, Kamala Harris would be president today.
Regardless, Hall contends that if the LLMs used to train AI were based on impartial and objective data, AI could be used in numerous productive ways. In his chapter on education, he writes about the possibility of every student having access to a customized AI tutor regardless of geography or household income.
“A thoughtfully designed AI tutor could analyze a student’s strength and weaknesses, tailor quizzes, walk a student through lessons and homework, administer and grade practice tests, and help shore up deficiencies and expand learning gains,” he wrote.
The book also details how AI can empower individuals to learn new job skills, pursue a free education, exercise creativity, create new job opportunities, and improve government efficiency and national security.
It examines how AI is influencing our daily lives on issues big and small, illustrating how AI encodes values, opinions, and subjective data into users’ inquiries.
The book also shares how fundamental issues such as truth, freedom, and human identity are being shaped by AI and suggests ways these principles can be protected through proactive oversight and responsible development.
Hall spent two years researching “Code Red,” and it shows with 80 pages of endnotes and hundreds of citations supporting his convictions and concerns. The book is essential reading for anyone concerned about what they see, hear, and think about the potential and pitfalls of AI in this brave new world.
‘Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI’
By Wynton Hall
Broadside Books: March 17, 2026
Hardcover, 320 pages
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