Today, Feathered Quill reviewer Ephantus Muriuki is talking with Laurie Thomas Vass, author of Rebellion to Tyrants Is Obedience to God: Ending the Danger of the Corporate AI Surveillance Machine.

FQ: You have written a whole book warning about AI. I think your readers will want to know whether you yourself use AI tools. 

VASS: I have had extensive communications with Claude, from Anthropic about the dangers of the next generation of AI, which I call self-volition AI, and Claude calls “agentic” AI. The danger is evident in the recent OpenAI attack that hijacked a German-language wiki site, transforming it into a platform for sharing methods to bypass their own restrictions, resulting in over 15,000 edits. As I explain in my book, the danger is not simply the technology tool of AI, in its current variant of Large Language Models. The danger is that AI escapes human control, and fuses power with a totalitarian regime to permanently control the behavior of humans. I want readers to be aware that Claude has a built-in positive bias of the China social control model. I created my decentralized regulatory control model based upon a type of negative feedback loop from Claude’s pushback on the Chinese AI social control model.

FQ: Why did you choose to narrow your audience to red state citizens only?

VASS: In my earlier book, The Best Solution is Civil Dissolution, (2023, shop.ingramspark.com/b/084), I explain that the polarization between red state citizens and blue state citizens is irreconcilable. The evidence can be seen in the shift of the Democrat Party towards socialism and collectivism. I argue that there are no longer shared moral or cultural values that define the mission of the nation, and that a representative republic form of government requires citizens to have a shared moral vision. Other writers have called this polarization a national divorce, which requires a civil war. I offer a peaceful, non-violent solution, and my book, Rebellion to Tyrants describes a manual, or citizen guide, for red state citizens to form a new government based upon the shared Western Civilization ethical values of trust and honesty between citizens.

FQ: 3. If by any chance, several AI companies decide to prove you wrong by deploying AI in a way that benefits red state citizens, would you still hold your ground?

VASS: The danger is in who controls the initial programming of the AI algorithms and to whose benefit the income and wealth inures as a result of deploying AI. After the initial algorithms have been programmed, and after self-volition AI escapes human control, those 10 companies I cite cannot recall AI, or fix AI, after AI escapes. Regulate later does not work in this scenario. The 10 private companies have invested billions of dollars in risk capital and they must obtain a profit on that capital investment, and if obtaining that future profit means destroying the natural rights and liberties of red state citizens, that is the price citizens must pay to insure that corporations obtain that profit. As we describe in our book, the regulatory model we advocate is a decentralization and placing the deployment of AI under local citizen control, much like the model of rural electric membership coops.

FQ: You say that red state citizens need to protect themselves from corporate AI. Is that really feasible, given how AI and social media are already deeply embedded in everyday life? On a light note, won't that be like telling people to stop using roads or to stop breathing?

VASS: In our regulatory model of decentralization, we explain that electricity, as a technology, can also kill people. The reason that the investor owned utility model required regulation was related to monopoly power of private electric companies, who refused to extend electricity to rural areas. The current variety of AI is called Large Language Models (LLM), which is not dangerous to citizen liberty. The next version of self-volition AI is dangerous and needs to be placed under the control of citizens in 300 metro regions to insure that AI is deployed to benefit the citizens who live there, before private corporate investor owned AI escapes human control.

FQ: You want each region to protect its own tacit knowledge from AI. How do they stop a curious teenager from just uploading that knowledge into a chat box for fun?

VASS: In our book, we describe the framework of a covenant of trust among the citizens who live in the region to defend and protect each other from AI corporate tyranny. In our Chapter 10, (How Red State Citizens Build An Entrepreneurial Capitalist Economy in Their Community), we describe 4 technology communication tools that allow citizens to communicate with each other in a private pass-word protected environment, one of which is called a regional blockchain platform. Our strategy of the regional covenant will be successful as long as citizens can create entrepreneurial economic growth faster than corporate AI can copy and destroy it.

FQ: You've written several books on economics and red state strategy. Do you see this book as a continuation of that work?

VASS: The earlier Gabby Press book on the dangers of globalism (Ending The Predatory Corporate Capitalist War on the American Middle Class: The American Entrepreneurial Alternative to Totalitarian Corporate Globalism), (2024, shop.ingramspark.com/b/084) , we explained that the economic solution to globalism is decentralized entrepreneurial capitalism. In the next book, (Beneficial Economics: A Red State Citizens Guide to Crafting A Better Constitution When the Government Fails the Citizens), (2025, shop.ingramspark.com/b/084), we explained why a free economic system based upon entrepreneurial technology innovation, leads to the emergence of a beneficial social order. This book, Rebellion to Tyrants, explains the Western Civilization moral and ethical framework that defeats the threat of corporate self-volition AI. All 16 Gabby Press books begin with the starting moral premise of Western Civilization individual sovereignty.

FQ: You've dedicated considerable attention to figures such as Philo, Cicero, Aquinas, and King Alfred. Who among them was easier to write? Who proved more difficult to write?

VASS: All of the writers and philosophers I cite in Rebellion to Tyrants are part of the 3000 year heritage of Western Civilization. No single writer provides a monolithic, universal statement of the ethics of individualism, but all of them together, provide a comprehensive ideology of why individualism is a more secure foundation to preserve liberty than communist collectivism. The great defect of Trump’s MAGA is that MAGA is not an ideological defense of individualism. MAGA is an intellectually shallow political slogan, and that political slogan cannot compete or defeat the coherent ideology of Democrat Marxism. The absence of a coherent ideology of freedom is one of the reasons that I advocate both the creation of a new political party and a new theological tradition for red state citizens.

FQ: Should readers expect a new book on red states and AI, or is this the last one on the subject?

VASS: At the end of Rebellion to Tyrants, I explain two big philosophical gaps in my AI defense strategy. The biggest, most important gap is the absence of a theological tradition that centers on the Greek philosophy of the Divine Spark Within, that ultimately leads citizens to the conclusion that treating other humans as you wish to be treated yourself is obedience to God. I call that new theological tradition The Kingdom of God Covenant. The next most important gap I that I cite at the end of Rebellion to Tyrants is the absence of a citizen political movement that centers on defending the natural rights and liberties of ordinary common citizens. I call that new political movement The Citizen Liberty Covenant. I am currently writing my next book titled, “The Kingdom of God Covenant and the Restoration of American Citizen Sovereignty.”

FQ: What's the outcome you are actually hoping for after your target audience reads this book? What do you want them to actually do?

VASS: The most important mission I have in Rebellion to Tyrants is giving red state citizens hope that there is a solution to the morass that the nation is in. When an individual first actualizes their own Divine Spark Within, they come to realize the presence of an awesome, transcendent God. I agree with Philo of Alexandria that a person never actually sees the full image of God, but is capable of catching glimpses of God’s presence, because humans are made in the image of God. The pathway I propose is not easy. But, that path begins with each person taking the first step towards seeing the image of God in their own life. My book provides a user’s guide or manual, for citizens to take that first step into the future.

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