Glenn Beck has unveiled a new experiment in the culture war: an artificial intelligence incarnation called George AI that pretends to be George Washington and serves as a sort of digital librarian for Beck’s private collection of founding-era documents. The clip Beck released is being promoted as an educational tool tied to his Torch initiative, but anyone paying attention knows this is about more than history — it’s about narrative control and who gets to shape our past.
In the preview interview, the AI version of Washington launches into a thoughtful warning about moral decay before Beck interrupts, telling the bot to “dumb it down” and to speak in “today’s language,” after which the answers neatly echo modern conservative talking points about discipline, faith, and character. That exchange made clear the project’s intent: use new technology to amplify a message that resonates with patriotic Americans, not to create an objective historian.
Predictably, the mainstream reaction was snide and dismissive, with left-leaning outlets calling the demonstration bizarre and accusing Beck of manufacturing a version of Washington that conveniently mirrors his own views. Those critiques tell you less about the underlying argument and more about the media’s reflexive hostility to any conservative attempt to recapture cultural ground, but they also expose a real risk — the spectacle can drown out substance.
A recent BlazeTV segment even turned inward and asked a simple cultural question: how should we refer to chatbots — he, it, or something else? According to the show’s description, a listener called Beck out over how he frames George AI, and Beck publicly thanked her for the call, which shows he’s willing to take accountability from fellow conservatives who worry about confusing tools with people. Treating software like a person is careless; tools deserve clear labels so citizens aren’t misled about what they’re listening to.
Conservatives should welcome technology that helps teach civics, but we must draw a firm line against anthropomorphizing machines or letting private tech become the new priesthood rewriting American memory. Our Founders deserve scholarly respect, not digital doppelgangers churned to reinforce present-day talking points; history is a discipline, not a marketing campaign. When we start giving synthetic voices the authority of real patriots, we cheapen the sacrifices and judgment that actually built this country.
This moment should be a wake-up call: insist on transparency from anyone building AI representations of public figures, demand clear disclaimers so parents and students know when they are talking to code, and push for commonsense guardrails that protect education from being outsourced to algorithms. If the left gets to cartoon our history with fancy tech, we lose the ground where character and civic virtue are taught.
Glenn Beck’s George AI may be earnest, entertaining, or even useful in small doses, but patriots should view it with a skeptical eye and hold creators accountable. Use the technology, by all means, but never let it replace human judgment, responsibility, and the moral education that makes liberty possible.
