The World and Everything in It: June 18, 2025

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PREROLL: Good morning, Nick Eicher here with a quick reminder: You rely on WORLD for sound journalism grounded in facts and Biblical truth … and we rely on you to keep it coming. Help us finish the June Giving Drive strong at WNG.org/JuneGivingDrive. Thanks for standing with us.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning!

Today on Washington Wednesday, a debate among Christian lawmakers highlights deeper questions about the role of the state in caring for the poor.

CHRIS COONS: In Luke 10, a lawyer says to Jesus ‘who is my neighbor?’ And that’s the question we pose to this bill coming over to the Senate from the House.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also, a World Tour special report on deadly violence in Nigeria.

And later, stories of recovery and resilience, and the surprising therapy that helped make it possible.

BACKHUS: He was able to answer the neurologist’s questions, and he asked me what we had been doing, because he said that was unheard of, that big of a change for him.

And WORLD opinions contributor Brad Littlejohn on free speech and the future of A.I.

MAST: It’s Wednesday, June 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.

SOUND: [Air raid sirens]

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Israel-Iran latest » Air raid sirens rang out yet again over Tel Aviv Wednesday morning with Iran and Israel trading airstrikes for a sixth straight day.

Israel's air defense systems were activated over both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Meanwhile:

SOUND: [Israeli fighter attacks]

The Israeli army releasing video of what it said were F-15 fighter jets striking military targets inside Iran.

President Trump said “we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran” and urged “unconditional surrender” from Iran.

He also said the United States knows where Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is hiding, but has chosen not to target him for now.

And U.S. intelligence adviser Brad Wenstrup says Trump’s position is clear:

 WENSTRUP: No nukes for Iran. That is where the president, I think, has been very clear that they cannot have a nuclear weapon.

But General Abdul Rahim Mousavi, the joint chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, says his country has no plans to back down.

MOUSAVI: [Speaking Farsi]

He says strong attacks against Israel are coming. He went on to advise Israeli residents to evacuate the cities of Tel Aviv and Jaffa in the coming days.

Division on U.S. role in Iran nuclear de-armament mission » While the United States is providing intelligence and logistical support to Israel, the White House says the U.S. military has not directly taken part in Israeli airstrikes so far.

And on Capitol Hill, there is no consensus on either side of the aisle as to whether the U.S. should take part in the strikes.

And many are now watching to see if the U.S. will do so, particularly with regard to dropping so-called ‘bunker buster’ bombs, which Israel does not possess. And those might be needed to take out nuclear facilities buried deep below ground.

Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty:

HAGERTY:  Whatever decision President Trump takes, I can assure you of this. He's gonna be taking America's interest to heart. He wants to see an end to the carnage. He wants to see that income fast, and he's not going to allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

It’s not a straight party line issue. Some Republicans have their reservations, while some Democrats are fully supportive of the US involvement to take out Iran’s nuclear capacity.

But Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine is not among them.

KAINE:  Fears of a wider war are growing among American officials as Israel presses the White House to intervene in its conflict with Iran.

Kaine said it is “Not in our national security interest to get into a war with Iran unless that war is absolutely necessary to defend the United States.”

Every president in modern times has ordered targeted airstrikes, which typically do not constitute initiating a full-scale war. But some lawmakers note that Iran would likely see even limited targeted strikes as an act of war nonetheless.

Airports close across Mideast » The conflict in the Middle East is causing chaos for airlines in the region. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher has more.

BENJAMIN EICHER: Numerous countries have closed their airspace … with Israeli jets, Iranian drones and missiles flying over their night skies.

Dozens of airports have ground their flights … or at least scaled back operations.

That has left many passengers stranded … including more than 150,000 Isralis abroad.

And aviation expert John Cox says the impact reaches far beyond the Middle East. He explains that there’s a domino effect. In his words … you’ve got “crews that are not where they are supposed to be, airplanes that are not where they’re supposed to be.”

And that can disrupt flight schedules across the globe.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher.

Drone strike in Kyiv » Russian missiles and drones again rained down on Ukraine Tuesday morning. Ukrainian officials say at least 15 people were killed and more than 150 wounded, with much of the carnage occurring when the air assault demolished a nine-story apartment building in Kyiv.

One drone heard here striking its target:

SOUND :[Drone strike]

U.S. State Dept. spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters:

BRUCE:  We condemn those strikes and extend our deepest condolences to the victims and to the families of all those, uh, affected.

It was the deadliest attack on the Ukrainian capital this year, with explosions echoing for hours. It followed two rounds of direct peace talks have failed to make progress on ending the war.

Democrats: Medicaid cuts could equal abortion cuts » Republican leaders are working to push a massive reconciliation bill across the finish line in the Senate what President Trump calls his ‘big beautiful bill’ which would address his top priorities.

Democratic and GOP lawmakers are sparring now over Medicaid. The Senate version of the bill looks to make cuts which Republicans say will slash “waste, fraud, and abuse”, not core benefits.

GOP Sen. Steve Daines:

DAINES:  The bottom line is this, Republicans are trying to save Medicaid. We wanna strengthen Medicaid while the Democrats are trying to drain Medicaid.

But Democrats say the cuts could curtail access to abortions. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer:

SCHUMER:  They want every state to have a ban, and what they do is they make abortion inaccessible to so many millions of women who want them.

While federal dollars can’t fund most abortions, some states use their own funds to provide abortion coverage through Medicaid.

Menendez prison » Former New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez is now officially serving an 11-year prison sentence.

He began serving that sentence on Tuesday after a federal court last year convicted him on charges related to a bribery scheme.

The 71-year-old career Democrat is appealing his conviction, but he will have to do so from behind bars.

Menendez told reporters earlier this year:

MENENDEZ: Regardless of the judge's comments today, I am innocent…

His wife, Nadine, was also convicted and faces sentencing in September.

Authorities say that among things, they found hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gold bars in Menendez’s home given to him in return for political favors.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: proposed funding changes to the U.S. SNAP program. Plus, how learning to ride a horse can improve serious health issues.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 18th of June.

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.

President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda is in the Senate this week. As Congress evaluates the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, lawmakers consider scaling back bloated government programs. That includes politically sensitive ones like the Supplemental Nutritional Aid Program, SNAP.

MAST: The program started out as Food Stamps during President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Currently, more than 40 million people take part in the program.

SNAP roughly doubled in cost around the time of COVID, and the price tag has remained above 100 billion dollars a year since. Is it all well spent?

WORLD Washington Bureau reporter Leo Briceno asked lawmakers of faith about it:

PROTESTOR: Don’t let nobody turn me around, turn me around, turn me around…

LEO BRICENO: Last Tuesday, hundreds of protesters came to the U.S. capitol with a faith-based proposition: Christian lawmakers should oppose shrinking government food benefits for the poor.

One of the lawmakers facilitating the event, Delaware Senator Chris Coons framed the argument this way:

COONS: In Luke 10, a lawyer says to Jesus ‘who is my neighbor?’ And that’s the question we pose to this bill coming over to the Senate from the House.

Coons, a Democrat, argues Scripture’s authority compels the government to do what it can do to help those in need.

Lawmakers of faith on both sides of the aisle are split on the bill's changes to the SNAP program:

THOMPSON: Are you a Christian, are you a man of faith? I sure am.

That’s Congressman Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania, Chairman of the House Agriculture committee. His committee drafted the language on the changes to SNAP. He believes Republican attempts to trim the program don’t conflict with Biblical mandates.

THOMPSON: When Christ was instructing his apostles, his disciples, which is what the scripture is based on, he wasn’t speaking to the government. He was speaking to the church…

In its current form, the legislative package would push some of SNAP’s funding onto the states, starting in 2028. It would also expand already-existing work requirements. Under current law, the program requires individuals age 18 to 53 who do not have children to work a minimum of 20 hours per week to qualify for benefits for a whole year. The bill before the Senate would extend those work requirements up to age 65 and include parents with children over the age of 6.

The bill also explicitly forbids illegal aliens from getting SNAP benefits—although visa recipients and green card holders will still be eligible.

Through these changes and others in the Agriculture portion of the Big Beautiful Bill, Republicans hope to trim government spending by $230 billion over 10 years.

But it’s not just the government that would have to trim its spending…

SMITH: Basically, I made too much money,

That’s Heaven Smith, a college student at West Virginia University studying nutrition and food. When she was a part of a work-study program, Smith met SNAP’s 20-hour work requirement. But then she changed jobs to work for a hospital and was no longer eligible, even though her cost of living wasn’t that much different. Instead of buying fresh protein, fruits, and vegetables, she started opting for the $5 menu at Wendy’s and scaling back her gas budget to have more money for food.

Today, thanks to her community and a more flexible schedule, Smith has been able to make ends meet and has taken on a second job.

SMITH: I’ve been able to like, actually budget and take time to figure out how [to] meal plan and things like that, so now I’m kind of in a way I’m kind of back to the way I was eating without SNAP.

Some Christians working in food-provision ministries worry that Republicans in Congress are setting the stage for painful adjustments, not only for individuals like Smith, but also for families.

CHO: None of us are suggesting that the SNAP program is perfect.

Eugene Cho, president and CEO of Bread for the World, a Christian advocacy group, believes SNAP’s benefits already serve the country’s most needy. Having spent 20 years as a pastor, Cho says he’s seen firsthand how hunger plagues families even in the United States. He worries that the changes to the program will hurt some of the country’s poorest households.

CHO: Eighty-six percent of all SNAP benefits go to households with gross monthly income at or below the poverty level. So, in other words, it is being utilized by the very people that need it the most.

In 2025, the poverty level for individuals is $15,600, and $32,000 for a household of four, although those dollars go further in some communities than others. Just under 40 million Americans live below that threshold.

Part of Cho’s concern is that Republicans are prioritizing tax cuts and other objectives at the expense of programs like SNAP.

CHO: I’m a fiscal conservative. I think it’s really important for our nation to prioritize—as one of its priorities—the reduction of our national debt. That said, I think that…It feels like we’re trying to make some advancement on our national debt on the backs of those who are being most impacted by levels of food insecurity and poverty,

But some Republicans in Congress say the bill protects benefits specifically for those who need them while still prioritizing the program’s financial efficiency.

JOHNSON: Vulnerable people are not being thrown off the program. It’s an indisputable fact that the work requirements do not affect pregnant women, those with young children at home, seniors, those with disabilities, or people living in areas of high unemployment.

That’s representative Dusty Johnson of South Dakota. He too is on the Agriculture Committee and describes himself as a man of faith.

JOHNSON: So many people in this town say, ‘Show me your budget, and I’ll show you your values. Our country spends hundreds of billions of dollars every year taking care of the most vulnerable among us. It is a remarkable investment in our people. We know that to preserve these programs we need to focus our resources on the most vulnerable, which is indeed what the reconciliation package does.

And other Republicans say preserving resources overall helps the government tackle an even bigger problem: the federal deficit. I asked Congressman Chip Roy of Texas how his fiscal conservatism squares with the faith-based protests at the Capitol. Roy is a leading voice in Congress calling for Republicans to do everything they can to trim government expenses through the Big Beautiful Bill.

ROY: I think when you say the government should be ‘equitable—’ equal justice under law, sure. Equitable in terms of distribution of resources? That’s not my worldview. I don’t think that’s consistent with the Christian worldview.

If Congress can find a way to prevent adding to the country’s $36 trillion debt, Roy believes Republicans should take it.

Last year, the country spent just north of one trillion dollars just on interest payments—roughly the same amount it spent on defense.

ROY: The government right now is unsustainable. You want to be Christian about it—what’s Christian about saddling an entire generation or more of Americans with untenable amounts of debt and interest and inflation?

It’s up to the Senate now to approve or amend the House’s proposed changes to SNAP. Last week, the Senate Agriculture Committee unveiled its own language which slightly loosens requirements presented in the House.

None of the changes to SNAP would become final until Congress passes the entire Big Beautiful Bill, something GOP leadership says it wants to see by July 4th.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno in Washington.

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

Militants believed to be Fulani herdsmen stormed farming villages over the weekend. They killed dozens and forced thousands to flee. The Fulani are mostly Muslim nomads. Some have clashed violently with Christian farmers over land and grazing rights.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s the latest in a series of brutal assaults that have left communities grieving, exhausted, and demanding protection.

WORLD Reporter Onize Oduah brings us this week’s World Tour special report.

SOUND: [Protesters chanting]

ONIZE ODUAH: Angry protestors chanted and held green branches on Sunday in Makurdi, the capital of Nigeria’s northcentral Benue state. They pushed back against police officers who tried to use tear gas to disperse the crowds.

Their anger followed a deadly overnight attack that began Friday night in the state’s villages of Yelwata and Daudu.

Residents say the armed Fulani terrorists staged a coordinated attack: One group first entered the western part of Yelwata and began shooting. Then, another group of attackers entered through the village’s eastern borders.

State authorities initially said at least 59 people died, but residents in the region have placed the death toll at 200 and possibly higher. More than 6,000 others are now displaced.

Edna Jones joined the protest in Makurdi.

JONES: I am protesting because right now, we are standing on the dead bodies of our mothers, our fathers, our brothers, and sisters, we have become IDPs in our own country. These killings have persisted for years.

Many of the victims were internally displaced people—or IDPs—who had sought refuge in the town after fleeing destruction from past attacks in their own communities.

The attackers opened fire on their victims and also set fire to the homes and market stalls where many IDPs were sleeping for the night.

SHIMAKAA: He was on a run, and then they shot him from behind …

Sekegh Shimakaa is an architect in Makurdi. One of the workers on his farmland was among the Yelwata victims.

SHIMAKAA: You know this, the strategy was, burn houses, stay out. Whoever comes out, you shoot them and all that. So I think he came out, and he was shot.

Benue and other states in the region have faced attacks that have pitted herders against mostly Christian farming communities. But residents say the attacks have grown more violent and coordinated, with deadly force and kidnappings. The attackers have also taken over some villages in the state.

Shimakaa has experienced the violence firsthand. In February, herdsmen abducted him as he left his farm.

SHIMAKAA: They took me into the bush. They took me up to the forest somewhere in Guma, and we stayed there for about seven days.

His family raised more than $6,000 in ransom to secure his release.

SHIMAKAA: I got released through the water line, through the river, because they instructed the money to come through the river, and then the boat that my people looked for to bring the ransom was the same boat that conveyed me when I was released.

On Sunday, Pope Leo XIV prayed for Nigeria in the aftermath of the weekend killings.

POPE LEO XIV: [ITALIAN] I pray that security, justice and peace will prevail in Nigeria, a beloved country so affected by various forms of violence.

His acknowledgement further fueled protesters, who said that he addressed the unrest even as Nigerian leaders remained silent.

SOUND: [Protesters]

Here’s protester Edna Jones again:

JONES: The government has a duty to protect lives and properties. If President Tinubu is overwhelmed by this insecurity in North central, in Benue, in Plateau, in Taraba, he should step aside, he should resign.

Benue state Gov. Hyacinth Alia has said his administration will strengthen security units to better protect communities.

But Shimakaa agrees that leaders have so far failed the people. He points to a pledge by the current administration to get people back to their homes. But two years after the leaders took office, thousands still remain displaced.

In another sign of escalation, Shimakaa says the attacks are also drawing closer to the state’s capital of Makurdi. One attack three weeks ago left three people dead.

SHIMAKAA: We want peace. This is raining season. This is farming period. We can't farm. We can't go to our farms to farm. So what are we going to eat? What we had in our store barns, they’re destroying it and burning it down. So what are we going to eat tomorrow? Should we die of hunger, or should we die because they are coming to kill us, coming after us?

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Oduah.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Imagine looking out the window and seeing a gigantic canary yellow No. 2 pencil where once there stood a proud oak.

AMY HIGGINS: Why is there a giant pencil? Good question. So we had a beautiful oak tree that we loved and gave us lots of shade, and it came down in a wind storm.

And when it did, the Higgins family faced a choice.

JOHN HIGGINS: Do we just cut the stubby trunk down or do we try to create new life? That chance for renewal, that promise, people really seem to buy into it.

They did. And every year since, neighbors gather to “sharpen” that 20-foot-tall pencil, literally three to 10 inches at a time, and they make a big party of it.

But every sharpening shortens the story. Whittle away 10 inches a year and by 2045 , they’ll be down to the eraser end. Yet even a stub can still make its mark.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, June 18th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

Coming next: healing on horseback.

For children with disabilities, therapy is often a routine part of life, usually in a doctor’s office. But sometimes, it happens in a barn, with a horse.

MAST: It’s called hippotherapy—a unique treatment where licensed therapists guide patients through exercises while on horseback.

WORLD’s Lauren Dunn followed one child’s journey over several months and brings us this story.

LAUREN DUNN: 4-year-old Tucker Backhus wears a helmet and a safety belt as he climbs a set of wooden steps. Flanked by his therapist and two others, he carefully swings his leg over a big brown horse.

TURNEY: What do you tell her?

TUCKER: Walk on.

TURNEY: Walk on.

As Tucker rides around the stable, he plays games. Reaching for a ball suspended from the ceiling as he passes under it. Tossing a ball and catching it. Riding backwards. Sideways. On his hands and knees.

TURNEY: Mr. Tucker, can you turn around backwards for me?

Tucker was born with agenesis of the corpus callosum. It’s a rare condition with a wide range of effects.

His mom, Alisha Backhus, explains that doctors still aren’t sure how many ways it affects Tucker.

BACKHUS: If you think of the corpus callosum being kind of like power lines or a highway or a bridge between the two halves of the brain, he's missing bits and pieces of that. So he has a corpus callosum, but his is very thin, and there's no way for them to tell what pieces are connected and what aren't.

Tucker’s speech is delayed. While he can eat food orally, he has a feeding tube.

Hippotherapy is so important to Tucker’s treatment that his mom drives an hour and 20 minutes to this barn in Goddard, Kan. They came for the first time about two years ago.

TURNEY: The horse's way to connect with us is really powerful. That's where the magic is, I think.

That’s Kori Turney. Turney operates a children’s therapy clinic, but she’s also the executive director at Prairie Meadows Therapeutic Riding Center. Her parents started the nonprofit in the 1980s.

Her dad picked 2 Corinthians 12:9 to summarize the center’s work.

TURNEY: My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. And the reason he chose that is just his kind of thing was that it's not the disability, but it's the ability that counts and how God can empower us through our weakness to overcome challenges and be strong in our life.

People who benefit from hippotherapy may have any of a wide range of conditions or disabilities. Children and adults with autism, cerebral palsy, brain injuries, multiple sclerosis, Down syndrome and other chromosomal disorders.

The movement of riding a horse mimics walking. It can help kids who aren’t walking yet or who have trouble with balance, like Tucker. It also helps Tucker relax enough to work on other skills, like speech.

TURNEY: He can’t sit on a swing with his feet off the ground, believe it or not, in the clinic and let me push him, but he can be 15 hands off of the ground, sitting sideways, stopping and going, and also completing a fine motor activity or carrying on the conversation, and have no fear.

During Tucker’s session, he rides Diane, a 23-year-old quarter horse.

TUCKER: I ride Diane.

DUNN: What does she feel like?

TUCKER: She feels like, she feels like, cotton candy.

Tucker’s having so much fun as Diane walks in circles around the barn that he hardly notices how hard he’s working.

HOLLY: Can you grab it out of there? Oh, my goodness, wait, hold on. You gotta make a basket.

Tucker’s mom says she sees huge benefits from his time with the horses. After his first few hippotherapy sessions, Tucker saw a neurologist but wasn’t able to answer the doctor’s questions clearly. A few months and several visits to the barn later, he had a follow-up appointment.

BACKHUS: He was able to answer the neurologist’s questions, and he asked me what we had been doing, because he said that was unheard of, that big of a change for him. And I told him, riding. Hippotherapy.

During much of the winter, it’s too cold for hippotherapy. But Tucker keeps working on many of the same skills in the clinic. He finds some tasks there more difficult.

TURNEY: Can you catch?

TUCKER: No, I can’t. Help, help!

TURNEY: Oh, there you did it! Yay, Tucker!

Without the calming effect of the horse, Turney says it’s harder for Tucker to keep his nervous system regulated.

TURNEY: With the messy, with noise, with, you know, being in a room with a lot of visual stimuli, sometimes just airplanes flying over the building will put him into that dysregulation. … We're working on laying those neurological connections and those pathways so that their window of tolerance for stress is better.

Once warmer weather returns, Tucker finally gets to climb back in the saddle—as an April shower pelts the metal roof.

TURNEY: Did you get wet coming in here?

TUCKER: Yeah

TURNEY: Darn rain.

TUCKER: I got wet. I did get all muddy and wet.

TURNEY: Muddy and wet. Oh, my goodness. Well, it’s pretty dry in here.

After a few laps around the barn, Diane stops while Tucker works on balancing and throwing a ball into a hoop fixed to the barn wall.

TURNEY: Ready, set, catch! Get it way high. Woo-hoo, Tucker!

Even in this first session back, Turney sees how far Tucker has come.

TURNEY: Today was great. He did things today, first session, that we didn't get until like halfway through, so like when he was setting side, set on the horse, that was a new thing just at the end.

But before Tucker leaves, there’s one last thing to do.

TURNEY: You gotta tell her how good she did today. What do you tell her?

TUCKER: Thank you.

TURNEY: Thank you, Diane, you are so sweet.

Dunn: Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lauren Dunn in Goddard, Kan.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, June 18th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

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

WORLD Opinions contributor Brad Littlejohn says with the advent of artificial intelligence, the courts are about to get their biggest test yet.

BRAD LITTLEJOHN: In a preliminary ruling in a high-profile case in Florida, District Court judge Anne Conway was presented with the question of whether AI chatbots enjoy free speech protections—or at least whether users have a First Amendment right to receive the “speech” of such bots. The case in question is an ugly one for the AI industry. A 14-year-old boy developed a crippling obsession with an AI simulation of a female character from Game of Thrones. When his parents took his phone away, he decided to end his life, with the apparent encouragement of the bot. The defendants—including Google, which helped build the platform—urged dismissal of the suit on the grounds that Character bots enjoyed First Amendment immunities.

Although this may seem absurd, one can see why the tech companies would make such an argument. Not only are chatbots an exploding industry with potentially massive liability exposures, but AI is now running “under the hood” of an enormous number of mainstream platforms and programs. Indeed, in a broader sense, the algorithms that are used to sort your search preferences, curate your Facebook feed, and filter spam are forms of artificial intelligence. Understandably, the tech industry has fought hard to argue that such algorithms constitute the “speech” of the companies, just as human editors filtering content would.

In a high-profile recent Supreme Court case, some judges were unconvinced. Justices Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas put their finger on the nub of the problem: “when AI algorithms make a decision, ‘even the researchers and programmers creating them don’t really understand why the models they have built make the decisions they make.’ Are such decisions equally expressive as the decisions made by humans? Should we at least think about this?” This concern seems even more relevant to a platform like Character AI, where it is a freewheeling bot engaging in “conversations” that go far beyond the programmers’ knowledge or intentions.

Thus in the Florida case, Judge Conway writes, “The operative question is whether Character A.I.’s output is speech, and speech is expressive. Speech communicates ideas. Speech has a message even when the message is not clear or is open to interpretation.” But unless we are prepared to concede consciousness to AI bots, how could we possibly describe them as “expressing ideas”? Indeed, even if bots did somehow attain consciousness and engage in genuine speech, it would not be the speech of humans—which is the only kind of speech the First Amendment is concerned to protect.

That said, while the particular utterances of the bot may not be constitutionally protected, the companies will still argue that the platforms as a whole, and the characters that inhabit them, represent the artistic expression of the companies.

Clearly, we are skating on some very thin ice here, ice that has been created by the courts’ gradual broadening of speech to include “expressive conduct” over the 20th century. This has marked a dangerous departure from First Amendment originalism, since the distinction between “speech” and “conduct” underlies the basic logic of First Amendment protections.

While we might well understand why a silent film actor should enjoy “free speech” protections even while not actually speaking, it is less clear that a software programmer should enjoy such protections for every line of code he writes, especially in a world where almost everything seems to run on computer code—including your refrigerator. For now, the courts are voicing growing skepticism, but no doubt some major legal showdowns are looming before we can expect this question to be settled.

I’m Brad Littlejohn.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: South Korea has a new president, can he bring stability?

And, as an old dog I think I’m qualified to ask, can you teach old dogs new tricks? We’ll find out what it takes to acquire an advanced skill at a (somewhat) advanced age.

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: “Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” —1 Peter 2:10

Go now in grace and peace.

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