The World and Everything in It: February 18, 2026

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning!

Today on Washington Wednesday, remembering Jesse Jackson.

JACKSON: America will get better, and better! Keep hope alive!

NICK EICHER, HOST: We’ll also talk about Marco Rubio’s address to Europe and what’s keeping the government shut down. Hunter Baker is standing by.

Also today, WORLD Tour.

And later, a close look at the farm, as American labor declines.

ECKEL: It’s not a desirable job. You do not have people lined up wanting to do that work.

And WORLD Commentator Janie B. Cheaney on the encroachment of AI.

MAST: It’s Wednesday, February 18th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

MAST: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Iran talks » U.S. officials reportedly made progress in nuclear talks with Iran in Geneva Tuesday.

The Iranians say they’ll provide detailed proposals within the next two weeks … to try and bridge the gaps between the two sides.

But Vice President JD Vance says Tehran still has a ways to go before President Trump will be satisfied. And he said the president’s bottom line is clear: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

VANCE:   We don't want nuclear proliferation. If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, there are a lot of other regimes, some friendly, some not so friendly. Who would get nuclear weapons after them? That would be a disaster for the American people.

And U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Michael Waltz was more direct about exactly what the United States demands.

WALTZ:  Iran has to give up its enrichment capability. It has to give up. Its already enriched, highly enriched uranium. Uh, also its support for terrorism, right? Uh, and its long range ballistic missiles.

Meantime, in a rare show of force, Iran says it temporarily closed the Strait of Hormuz for live fire military drills on Tuesday.

That comes as President Trump has threatened military action if Iran does not agree to curb its nuclear program.

The U.S. recently sent another aircraft carrier to the Middle East as part of a military buildup near Iran.

Ukraine talks » The latest round of U.S.-brokered peace talks between Russia and Ukraine began again in Geneva yesterday but no signs yet of major progress. And comes as Russian forces continue their attacks against civilian targets in Ukraine.

SOUND: [Another Odesa attack]

Russia launched a drone strike on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa. Local authorities say three people were injured in that attack.

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking Ukrainian]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy slammed Moscow for ordering attacks on the same day peace talks began.

The strike was only the latest complication amid talks that many expected to focus on security and humanitarian issues.

Fetterman on DHS shutdown » Still no sign that the partial government shutdown is any closer to ending. Funding has expired for the Department of Homeland Security with Democrats blocking funding as they demand changes to immigration enforcement.

But at least one Democrats is not on board with the shutdown. Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman notes that it’s not affecting Immigration and Customs Enforcement — or ICE.

FETTERMAN:  They have plenty of money after the big, beautiful bill, so that why shut this down? You can want to reform ice and I do, but that's not going to have the impact. But you are willing to shut down all of those very important parts.

The shutdown is impacting agencies including TSA, FEMA and the Coast Guard.

Republicans agree to new measures like requiring body cameras on agents. But Democrats also want ICE agents to remove their face masks and obtain judicial warrants in more situations, which GOP members oppose.

Congress is not in session at the moment, meaning there will be no new funding for DHS until at least next week.

New drug boat strikes » The U.S. military says it's carried out strikes on three boats accused of smuggling drugs in Latin American waters. WORLDs Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: The series of strikes carried out killed 11 people. The Pentagon says all of them were part of groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations.

The military says it struck two boats carrying four people each in the eastern Pacific Ocean, and a third boat carrying three people in the Caribbean.

The Pentagon has reportedly ordered more than 40 such attacks. President Trump launched a campaign back in September to target cartel vessels.

The president last year ordered one of the largest military buildups in the Caribbean in generations.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Warner Bros reopens takeover talks with Paramount » Warner Bros. Discovery is briefly reopening takeover talks with Paramount to hear the company’s “best and final” offer.

In a Tuesday regulatory filing, Warner said that Netflix had granted it a waiver to open discussions with Paramount for seven days.

But in the meantime, Warner’s board is still recommending shareholders support of its proposed merger with Netflix.

Even if approved, a Warner Bros Discovery merger with Netflix will face tough questions from federal regulators.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead on Washington Wednesday: Europe responds to Marco Rubio’s speech. Plus, farmers work to solve a labor shortage.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday, the 18th of February. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Time now for Washington Wednesday! Joining us now is political scientist Hunter Baker. He is a WORLD Opinions Contributor. Good morning Hunter!

HUNTER BAKER: Good morning!

MAST: Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke at the Munich Security Conference last weekend. His speech is being widely and highly praised for the way it outlined both challenges and opportunities that lay ahead for Europe and the U.S. Here’s a little bit of that speech.

RUBIO: Our expansion into the interior followed the footsteps of French fur traders and explorers whose names, by the way, still adorn the street signs and towns’ names all across the Mississippi Valley. Our horses, our ranches, our rodeos—the entire romance of the cowboy archetype that became synonymous with the American West—these were born in Spain. And our largest and most iconic city was named New Amsterdam before it was named New York.

Some politicians have been downright effusive about the address—it’s drawn comparisons to Churchill… Reagan… Hunter, why do you think it’s being seen this way, and do you agree with those assessments?

BAKER: First of all, it's being seen in comparison to what JD Vance did last year. And I think that you could view Vance as maybe taking Europe to task with his address. I mean, there's a sense in which it's a similar address, almost a mirror image, kind of a thing. You know, Vance being bad cop and Rubio being good cop. But however you want to characterize it, Rubio was very statesman-like and the way that he went about this address, tying the United States and Europe together was very deeply appreciated by our European counterparts. And the other thing to say about it, so you mentioned Churchill and Reagan, there was really some beautiful rhetoric in this speech. You know, it does soar. It's not blunt, but there's some poetry there. And so I think that he was altogether successful.

EICHER: First of all, it's being seen in comparison to what JD Vance did last year. And I think that you could view Vance as maybe taking Europe to task with his address. I mean, there's a sense in which it's a similar address, almost a mirror image, kind of a thing. You know, Vance being bad cop and Rubio being good cop. But however you want to characterize it, Rubio was very statesman-like and the way that he went about this address, tying the United States and Europe together was very deeply appreciated by our European counterparts. And the other thing to say about it, so you mentioned Churchill and Reagan, there was really some beautiful rhetoric in this speech. You know, it does soar. It's not blunt, but there's some poetry there. And so I think that he was altogether successful.

BAKER: That's true, but I think that it was phrased as an invitation, essentially that what Rubio is doing is that he's reminding Europe who they have been. Because there's a sense you take the word Christendom, the word Christendom used to be essentially a synonym for Europe. You know, before Christendom, Europe is this pagan entity that would be unrecognizable to us. And so he's really reminding Europe, this is who you are. This is where your greatness has come from. That's what's important about what he had to say. He's making an offer instead of correcting

MAST: Well, European leaders, interestingly enough, repeatedly used the term “reassuring” to describe the speech. Let's play one more clip. We may hear the reason why.

RUBIO: So in a time of headlines heralding the end of the transatlantic era, let it be known and clear to all that this is neither our goal nor our wish – because for us Americans, our home may be in the Western Hemisphere, but we will always be a child of Europe.

So the speech did get a standing ovation—and yet it was also quite the challenge to Europe. Do you think the Europeans accepted this from Rubio on the grounds that it could’ve been worse, or do you think there’s a sense that he’s won the argument and they agree now?

BAKER: So I think there's a few things going on there. First of all, that line about the United States being a child of Europe, that's a great line, right? I mean, first of all, it's rooted in reality. We do have these European origins. And so it flatters Europe, because the United States is the greatest nation on the planet. And so we identify them as the parent of the greatest nation on the planet. And basically to say that, assuming that you believe that there is some greatness that the United States possesses, some of that greatness is derived from Europe, and what Europe has been and so if you're European, and especially if you're hoping for American guarantees of security, as they have for decades now, you're very reassured to hear that we're sort of tying ourselves together in terms of our destiny.

EICHER: Alright, Hunter, back in Washington, the partial shutdown still ongoing is not about broad budget numbers. It’s specifically about how immigration enforcement should be carried out.

Democrats want new accountability rules after January’s enforcement controversies in Minneapolis ... and the deaths of two people at the hands of ICE agents.

Congressional Democrats are demanding judicial warrants for home entries. They’re demanding restrictions on masked agents. Republicans, for their part, say those changes would undermine ICE’s ability to carry out deportation orders.

But it seems to me the real issue is the volume of cases, millions of cases. And if those cannot be handled as designed, in Article II immigration courts versus Article III judicial branch courts, the mess the previous administration created will never get taken care of.

So given all that, and the fact that most people don't really understand even that much, do you think Democrats have the winning hand here — and will Republicans have to give in on how immigration enforcement is structured and overseen?

BAKER: I think that the Republicans are going to have to make their case to the American people. I think that they have convinced the American people that illegal immigration is a serious problem. I think that they have convinced them that we have to control the border, and the American people see that happening with the Trump administration, and that's probably one of the things that they give the administration the most credit on they're not prepared for the messiness of our efforts so far to deport people. So we've seen, you know, sort of a correction, of course, by Tom Homan, to go after those illegal immigrants who have committed some kind of a crime in the United States. Now that takes it down to a more manageable size. And so that will, that will improve things in the near term.

EICHER: So just thinking strategically, then, do you think that the Republicans could give in maybe on an issue like masked agents and IDs for the agents, maybe coupled with some more security for them? Because it just seems to me, if they give in on this article three issue and allowing these things to be adjudicated in the Article III courts, you're going to have illegals dying of old age before these cases even get to the point of being dealt with. I don't see how they give in on that and not lose the whole ball game here.

BAKER: No, I think that's right. I think that if you get to the place where you have to have a judicial warrant for every single one of these people, then effectively, you're done. You're done with really trying to deal with the deportation of the vast mass of people who have come into the country. So no, I don't think they can give in on that. If that's really the priority to move large numbers of people back to the country from which they've come.

Now you mentioned masked agents. I think that politicians of the left have dwelt on this issue of masked agents, greatly to their rhetorical advantage. And I think that it's important to say something that I don't hear being said, which is, there's a reason that these men and women are wearing masks. We forget that illegal immigration is all bound up with these Mexican cartels, that there is a lot of money to be made in immigration, you know, this sort of smuggling of human beings into the country.

And so I think that the fear is that if we don't hide the identity of these people, they're going to start disappearing or being assassinated by the cartels who are to use Trump type language, not very nice. So I think, I think that's one place where you can't give in body cameras, absolutely. But I think that you have to protect the identity of the agents.

EICHER: Well, Hunter, the president’s State of the Union address is a week away. This is a major opportunity for the president to frame the year, and it’s a crucial one for him, whether his party keeps control of Congress. What are you expecting he’ll emphasize?

BAKER: Well, it'll be interesting to see if he chooses to showcase America 250 so here we are. We talked about this several months back. We're getting close to the big celebrations that will occur this summer. So he may take the opportunity to make kind of a sort of a feel good moment out of 250 years for the United States of America. I think that he'll address affordability. I think that every American politician is convinced that affordability is what Americans want to hear them talk about. And I think that in his case, he'll probably talk about energy affordability, you know, pumping more oil out of the ground, working to make better use out of the coal that we have available to us. You know, you may have seen him receiving his champion of coal award.

I think he'll talk about Trump RX, his attempt to help with drug affordability for the American people. I think he's going to talk about all of his trade deals and the amount of money that is supposed to be invested in the United States by other countries. I think that he will talk about revenue from tariffs, even though, as he makes this speech, it's going to be kind of an uncertain outcome, most likely with the court. By that point, I think he's going to talk about his foreign policy wins, particularly in Iran and Venezuela.

And I, we were just talking about the border. I think he's going to double down. I think there's going to be no apology from him about the border or about ICE. I think he's going to say that, we need to not only do what we've been doing, but we need to do more. And finally, I think he'll probably tout his successes on crime. You know, the cities where he has brought in the National Guard and you've seen significant reductions in the number of crimes committed.

MAST: Well, Hunter, one last thing before we go. Civil Rights activist Jesse Jackson has died at age 84. He served as something of a bridge between the Civil Rights Movement as a member of Martin Luther King Jr.’s inner circle…and the presidency of Barack Obama in 2008.

In 1984 and 1988, Jackson mounted his own campaigns…on a progressive platform he called the “rainbow push coalition”…of working class and ethnic minority voters. Here he is in 1988.

JACKSON: You must not surrender. You may or may not get there, but just know that you are qualified and you hold on and hold out. We must never surrender. America will get better and better. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive.

Jackson never won the presidential nomination, but stayed in the arena as a public speaker. He ended up in hot water with his party after critical comments about candidate Barack Obama were picked up on a hot mic—but even that was forgiven, with Obama calling Jackson a “true giant” when news of his death broke.

Hunter, what lessons can we take away from Jackson’s political influence?

BAKER: Jesse Jackson is an important kind of bridge figure certainly never approached the, the stature or the contribution of a Martin Luther King, Jr, but somebody who wanted to be Martin Luther King Jr, I think that he modeled himself after King. I think that the reason that he went to seminary, I don't think he completed seminary, but I think the reason he went was to be like Martin Luther King Jr, he had some of that rhetorical brilliance that King had, you know, people remember his convention speeches, Democratic Convention 1984 and 1988 specifically the, you know, keep hope alive, theme that he pressed so at his best, he was an inspiring figure for a lot of people. He got millions of votes in his two runs for the Democratic nomination. But there was also a part of him that was he was known for kind of making threats toward large corporations in an attempt to extract large donations from them for his organizations, And that was something that was documented more and more toward the end of his career, and then when he began to be surpassed by Barack Obama, he wasn't very happy about that either.

The other thing that I think is really important to mention is the life issue. People may not realize this, but Jesse Jackson was once an ardent pro lifer. It's one of the strange things that occurred over time in the Democratic Party, was this sort of change on the life issue. I think that Al Gore, Teddy Kennedy, Dennis Kucinich, you know, there any number that we could point to who were at one point pro lifers and who changed, and they all had the same thing in common, which was they ran for the nomination for the presidency in that party, there simply came to be a litmus test. I think we could probably argue there's a litmus test in the opposite direction in the Republican party today, but I call it the Planned Parenthood beauty pageant that has to occur every time we have a Democratic nomination, and if you can't win that beauty pageant, you don't have a shot at the nomination.

MAST: Hunter Baker is provost at North Greenville University. Thank you so much, Hunter.

BAKER: Thank you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour.

Last week, the South Asian country of Bangladesh held its first free and fair elections in more than a decade and a half.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: They came after student demonstrations against the prime minister turned violent and led to her resignation. She has been in exile since 2024. Now the country has officially signified it’s ready to move in a new direction.

WORLD Correspondent Amy Lewis has this report.

AMY LEWIS: The outcome of Bangladesh’s general election last Thursday left no doubt about what voters wanted.

ANNOUNCER: The Bangladesh Nationalist Party has scored a sweeping victory in the country’s general election, setting the stage for a sweeping political re-set.

The moderately Islamic Bangladesh Nationalist Party, or BNP, won more than 70 percent of the 300 available seats. These are the first elections the country has held since student uprisings in 2024 ended with more than 1400 dead and many injured in clashes with police.

SOUND: [Student protests, 2024. Yelling. Blasts.]

Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister of 15 years, led the other dominant political party, the Awami League. She was once seen as a pro-democracy figure in Bangladesh–the 8th most populated country in the world. But during her second term as prime minister more than a thousand opposition leaders and family members disappeared or were arrested. Students called for her resignation. She escaped to India in a helicopter.

BBC: The Prime Minister has now resigned and according to reports has fled the country. That’s as protestors have stormed her residence…

Nobel Laureate Muhommed Yunus became the country’s chief advisor during the interim government and helped set up the most recent elections.

FIRSTPOST: Yunus also barred Hasina’s Awami League from contesting elections. Her exclusion from the polls led to backlash…

Suddenly, many minorities who regularly voted for candidates from the Awami League had to figure out who to vote for.

KAIN: The Christians were traditionally very attached to Awami League. So I think they were, there was a question in the mind, who are they going to vote for?

Asa Kain pastors the Dhaka Assembly of God Church in the country’s capital and heads a large Christian school. He says with Awami League candidates banned from running, Christians had few choices.

KAIN: Either you had the, you know, the BNP, who have been in power for many years in the, in the beginning, and then you had the Islamic party, Jamaat e-Islami. 

Just a few weeks before the election, polls showed the more secular BNP and the pro-Sharia Jamaat parties nearly tied. Then the extremist Jamaat party leader said in a speech that it would be un-Islamic for women to lead, even though 44 percent of voters are women and 42 percent of voters are Gen Z.

KAIN: Our people are pretty progressive, and our women are pretty outgoing, you know, so they did not like it. I think that has backfired against them.

Very few candidates are Christians in this Muslim-majority nation of 170 million.

KAIN: More than 90 percent are Muslims, and more than 8 percent are Hindus. So Christianity is a very microscopic minority in Bangladesh. So according to the government estimation census, about 0.5 percent Christians. A half of 1 percent.

Pastor Asa told those who asked to look at the integrity and character of each candidate instead of their party. In spite of their small numbers, Christians have a very good reputation among government workers because of their good schools and hospitals.

KAIN: I get called from the government ministers and talk, ‘please take my child. Please give him a chance.’ So they know that our education is the best.

But there’s still a tension.

KAIN: In one hand, they're saying that you've done a lot of good work. Other hand, there's an apprehension that ‘You must be converting people by doing all these good works,’ you know. But we're Christians. We love to do good work, and that's our calling.

Changing religions is legal for anyone over 18, but Pastor Asa says Christians face societal pressure from other sources.

KAIN: It comes from the local people, the community. Because Islam is a very community religion, so anybody leaving that community and going out, they have to face certain difficulties, definitely.

In the run-up to the election, Pastor Asa says Christians prayed fervently for his country. Not so much about which candidates would win, but for peace.

KAIN: On the whole, it was so peaceful I couldn't even believe it. I mean, they're they're saying. How come we are so quiet? I think it's, it's the prayer of God's people.

Besides forming a new government, the country’s new prime minister, Tarique Rahman, will have to decide what to do about the former prime minister. Last year Hasina was convicted in absentia of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. Audio here from CNN’s News18 from India.

ANNOUNCER: If there’s one thorn in the flesh between the India-Bangladesh ties, it is the issue of Sheikh Hasina.

Hasina’s exile in India complicates the tense diplomatic relations between the two countries.

ANNOUNCER: The fact remains that the BNP will certainly want Sheikh Hasina to face trial. They have now said it very very openly that India MUST hand over Sheikh Hasina… It’s certainly a Catch-22 situation as far as the Indian government goes.

During the election millions of Bangladeshis also approved a referendum about constitutional amendments, term limits, and a change to the governmental power structure. Basically, putting checks on the system so that someone like Sheikh Hasina doesn’t stay in power too long.

KAIN: So just pray that God will give us some good, righteous people in place.

That’s this week’s World Tour. I’m Amy Lewis.

NICK EICHER, HOST: In Miami, a food-delivery robot made a stop it couldn’t recover from.

It got stuck on railroad tracks.

Guillermo Dapelo was out walking his dogs, shooting video with his phone.

SOUND: [Dog barking, man saying, “Oh, it’s gonna crush it…”]

As a Brightline train approached the stranded robot. The dog clearly understood the gravity of the situation.

But the robot:

SOUND: [Impact]

Didn't know what hit it.

No one was hurt — unless you count one flattened Uber Eats delivery bot.

AUDIO: NO!

Sometimes the future runs on artificial intelligence.

Sometimes artificial intelligence runs straight into a train.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, February 18th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a declining workforce in agriculture.

As domestic labor pools dry out, farmers must go elsewhere with their job postings. But the cost to hire outside the U.S. is steep.

Farmers are trying to figure out a solution with disappointing dead-ends.

WORLD’s Emma Eicher has the story.

EMMA EICHER: The agricultural industry is on the hunt for American workers.

But nobody seems to want the job.

KEITH ECKEL: It's not a desirable job. You do not have people lined up wanting to do that work.

In 1949, when Keith Eckel was only two years-old, his father moved the family out to the country.

ECKEL: My dad was a risk taker. My mom was not. Both were extremely hard workers.

From dust came an enterprise: Fred. W Eckel Sons farm. The business grew every year, requiring more employees. In the ‘60s, Keith worked alongside 80 year old grandmothers, picking rows of tomatoes in scorching heat.

ECKEL: They were great people, great people. Now it’s a different time, and we have to adjust to the times.

Today, you won’t find any grandmothers out in Eckel’s fields. Instead, you’ll find migrant workers on seasonal visas.

In 1990, 76% of farm workers were American. Today, it’s less than half that number.

Many in the agricultural industry suspect that young Americans just don’t consider farming as a viable career.

JOHN WALT BOATWRIGHT: The reality is, domestic workers are becoming fewer and fewer to find.

John Walt Boatwright works at the American Farm Bureau Federation. He’s the Director of Government Affairs.

Boatwright says many Americans think any job in agriculture automatically means hard manual labor. That perception drives young workers away.

BOATWRIGHT: You have people who are more removed from agriculture than they have historically been. I think people don't aspire to be farm workers, necessarily, at least in the United States …

SOUND: People chatting

In Hershey, Pennsylvania, farmers from all over the state gather at Hershey Lodge for the 75th annual meeting. Most attendees are middle-aged and older, but in the thick of the crowd, there’s a gaggle of young adults with the words “YAP” printed on their name tags.

It stands for Young Ag Professionals. They aim to teach younger people about career opportunities and foster leadership.

JOHN MARK MILLER: We need more farmers …

John Mark Miller is a Young Ag Professional, and he says the industry needs youth.

MILLER: We are basically less than 2% of the population at this point in the US, and yet we still continue to feed us and the world.

From his perspective, many college-aged adults don’t consider agriculture because it doesn’t pay enough.

MILLER: Farming is a very slow burn job. If you do a good job of it, you do well at it, and you continue to grow and expand to the point that you have what you need to live off of, you'll get there in the end. But from a base level, I think it's still a cash issue.

But others say the industry has already tried to combat that. Members of the Farm Bureau Federation tried raising wages. John Walt Boatwright again:

BOATWRIGHT: We've had so many farmer members who have sought to hire domestic workers and raised their advertised rates, and still haven't been able to attract domestic workers.

Another solution is the H2-A Agricultural Worker Program, which helps farmers find migrant workers when they can’t fill a job with domestic workers.

BOATWRIGHT: It's over 400,000 certified positions in the H2-A program nationwide. That is a true measure of the market need.

But the H2-A visa program works only for those who can pay the high cost.

BOATWRIGHT: Our economist did some analysis and said, with the visa fees, you know, the estimated cost associated with housing and transportation involved, you're looking at $11,000 per worker before they even get on the ground.

That’s a hefty number for the family owned farms which make up about 95% of the U.S. agriculture industry.

But for large farms, H2-A visas are a necessity. Here’s Keith Eckel.

ECKEL: Today, I grow about 500 acres of corn for grain, about 300 acres of soybeans, about 25 acres of sweet corn. We've been blessed with great employees …

Eckel eventually became the president of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau through his decades of work in agriculture. His own farm relies on migrant employees, so he’s witnessed a shifting workforce firsthand.

ECKEL: In 1900 23% of the population lived on the farm, and they fed 100 million people. Today, 1.4% of the population lives on the farm, we feed a nation of 330 million.The productive capability of this nation has increased so dramatically that it's literally unbelievable.

Despite the decline in farms, Eckel is still optimistic about where the industry is headed.

ECKEL: I just have to look back to 1900 with those statistics and think of what a remarkable job agriculture has done in producing food and fiber for this country.

Others share his cautious optimism. Tomorrow we’ll have the story of two farmers who hope to keep the farm in the family, passing down a legacy of hard work.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Emma Eicher, in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Artificial intelligence has crossed another line — maybe a technical one, maybe something more. Some say the machines are now improving themselves. Others say that is hype. Either way, the pace is quickening.

WORLD Commentator Janie B. Cheaney considers what happens when the tools we built begin to act like something else.

JANIE B. CHEANEY: A few weeks ago we crossed a technical line. With the release of Claude Opus 4.6 by Anthropic, and GPT 5.3 by Open AI we are confronted with artificial intelligence that has learned how to program itself. Tyler Cowen at The Free Press announced, “So from here on AI is driving its own progress, and that progress will become much faster.”

A couple of weeks earlier, tech watchers were all abuzz about Moltbook, a Reddit-like platform for AI agents, otherwise known as bots. Within days of its creation the bots were discussing how to form their own secret language, set up private social networks, and turn themselves back on when humans try to turn them off.

To hear some tell it, we’re just a step away from the nightmare scenario of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where HAL the computer tries to offload his last astronaut traveling companion.

Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL. I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Bowman: What’s the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Bowman: What are you talking about?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it. [cut Bowman’s line] I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.

The Moltbook stunt was probably just that – a stunt. Though it claims to limit interaction to AI agents, those agents are created by humans and at this point the bots can do nothing humans don’t allow them to do. It remains unclear whether a singularity is possible: that is, whether machines, at some point, will become self-conscious and self-willed. Since they lack a spiritual dimension unrelated to material causes – a soul, in other words - that seems unlikely.

But if you’re not sure what AI is capable of and how it will affect your life and upend society - Well, nobody is. We are hurtling into unknown territory. It’s likely the labor market will be rearranged and white-collar jobs hardest hit. Only a decade ago we were telling low-skilled workers to “learn to code.” Maybe it’s time to tell programmers to, “learn to plumb.”

Moltbook is a product of OpenClaw, which bills itself as “The AI that actually does things.” You can install an OpenClaw Agent on your phone and it will answer your emails, schedule your appointments, book your flights and check in 24 hours ahead. Or here’s another idea: Don’t. Aside from the risk of turning your bank account and personal communication over to a soulless machine, these are all things you should do for yourself.

Every AI advance makes life a little more frictionless. To counter it, humans will have to consciously create their own friction. Skip the auto-generated summary and read a whole book. Cancel the DoorDash order and cook a meal. Write a letter and walk it to the post office. Shop for flowers at the greenhouse and take them to a friend.

One assumption behind AI is that human nature is endlessly malleable. Human nature is God-created and can only be pushed so far before it begins to push back. We’re already seeing cracks in the hypothesis that gender is fluid. We may also be seeing hopeful signs as young people grow disenchanted with social media and start thinking about swapping their phones for personal interaction. AI does pose some unique threats to social order, all the more fearful because we don’t know what they are yet. But don’t be afraid. Be human.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Protecting privacy in the age of digital manipulation; we’ll have a report. And, part two of our story on family farmers. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: “ … when they got out of the boat, the people immediately recognized [Jesus] and ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.” —Mark 6:54-56

Go now in grace and peace.

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