In an age when information is no longer merely transmitted but generated, it is worth asking: how much of what we see on the screens before us is truly organic—and how much is the product of unseen machinery?
The sudden elevation of certain public figures, including polarizing internet personalities like Nicholas Fuentes, a Catholic who has been viewed as openly racist and has raised quiet questions among analysts, cybersecurity officials, and observers of cultural unrest. Fuentes did not emerge from traditional institutions, media pipelines, or established networks. He rose instead through algorithms, virality, and online echo chambers—terrain increasingly shaped not by human hands, but by automated systems that know us better than we know ourselves.
Foreign adversaries—from Russia to China to smaller, opportunistic actors—have openly experimented with AI-driven influence operations. Unlike the troll farms of a decade ago, modern influence warfare deploys large language models, personality simulators, sentiment engines, and swarm bots capable of mimicking thousands of human voices with eerie precision. Their purpose is simple: destabilize, divide, confuse, and inflame.
Into such an environment walks a figure like Fuentes—already controversial, already polarizing, already capable of agitating deep cultural and political fault lines. It takes little effort for foreign AI systems to boost such a figure: amplify certain clips, distort public sentiment, flood comment sections, or craft narratives suggesting a groundswell that may not actually exist. A small spark becomes a perceived wildfire.
This is not to say his rise is artificial in the sense of being fabricated from nothing. Rather, it may be accelerated, exaggerated, or weaponized by external systems that understand all too well how Western societies fracture.
The spiritual dimension cannot be ignored. Confusion, discord, and extremity—whether left or right—have always been favored tools of darker forces, and artificial intelligence can become a magnifier for both human weakness and spiritual vulnerability. As Scripture notes, deception in the final age becomes more subtle, more technological, and more convincing: “Even the elect, if possible.”
Is foreign AI behind Nicholas Fuentes? It is impossible to say with certainty. But the question itself reflects a dawning awareness: influence today does not need armies or ideologies—only data, algorithms, and a target population already weary and divided.
The wise response is vigilance, discernment, and prayer. For in a world where voices can be manufactured and movements can be artificially inflated, only truth—quiet, steady, unchanging—remains immune to manipulation.