All Episodes

July 11, 2025 6 mins

The US Secretary of State was impersonated using AI  

Concerning news this week as it was revealed that at least three foreign ministers, a US governor, and a member of Congress all received outreach from the fake Rubio, according to a State Department cable.  

The impersonator reached out to people using Signal, an app that allows you to choose any username you want – the impersonator used a fake state department email address to make it look legit. At least one of the targets was sent a text message, but at least two were sent Signal voice messages.  

We're at a point now, or will reach it very soon, where we're going to need to figure out how to verify if the person you're chatting or talking to is who you think they are.  

 

Nvidia becomes the first $4 trillion company  

Apple was the first US company to hit $1 trillion in 2018, first to hit $2 trillion in 2020, and the first to hit $3 trillion in 2022, so by that math, it should have hit $4 trillion in 2024, but Nvidia beat them.  

Nvidia only became a $1 trillion company in 2023 - two years ago!  

For context, $4 trillion would be like giving all 5.3 million New Zealanders USD $750,000 (NZD $1.2 million). 

 

Samsung is exploring new wearables  

The electronics maker, who is known for leading with tech advancements, says they're exploring how people may want to interact with AI. Their current thinking is that the device shouldn't be carried, so are looking at glasses, earrings, watches, rings, a necklace, and would be a companion to a phone.   

 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at b It is.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Time to catch up with our texpert. Paul Stenhouse is
our man with the weekly updates from the tech world,
and Paul, it's been a bit of a worrying week
in terms of development for AI. This week we've put
across another little threshold. The US Secretary of State has
been impersonated using AI.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah, very worrying. I mean we've talked about this technology
in the past of it being available. You sort of
can just take clips of people's voices, right, and you
don't even need that much, and you look figure like
someone like Michael Rubio, who's been around microphones for a
very long time in US politics. You've got a lot
of clips to use, and you can upload those and

(00:52):
you can very easily and quickly create realistic sounding voices
completely synthetically. And this week news broke that his voice
had been used and three foreign ministers, a US governor,
and a member of Congress all received outreach from this
fake Marco Rubio. Now, something was amiss, and I think

(01:15):
they knew that, and obviously this is why it was reported.
But very scary stuff and they did it using the
encrypted app Signal. And why that's interesting to me is
that if you're if you're in the political circle, you
would know that Marco Rubio uses Signal for US government

(01:36):
actions because he was caught with JD. Varanceenco talking about
bombings on signal in a group chat. And so these
foreign leaders or other leaders in government got an account
popped up on their device and said, hey, this person
wants to chat with you. And on signal you can
see anything you want is your username. So what they

(01:56):
did is they put in like Marco dot Rubio at
state dot gov, which you can type anything you want
in there. You could be Donald dot trumpet whatever you want.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
It to be.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
So they got this thing and it said, you know,
you've got a message from Marca Rubio. They got a
voice note from Marco Rubio, some of them got text messages.
You wouldn't know if it was him or not. Like
we're definitely at a point now where how do you
know that it is or isn't Marca Rubio.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Do you reckon there's anything, there's anything that that we're
going to be able to do, like a kind of verifying,
like a bona fide impenetrable, safe verifying process for communications
and things in the future. It's sort of hard to
imagine a world in which they'll design something that will
be that comprehensive.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
A yeah, and then how it's probably easy to foil, right,
Like someone can just like mess with the signature or like,
I think that the thing that we're going to see
is this like end to end encryption type stuff where
you identify the device and you may be able to
identify the device by which someone is sending you something. Right,
that may be the way we go. It's it's gonna

(03:00):
be tough. I mean, you hear of those crazy stories.
I don't know if you've ever done this in your
journalistic training of hostile environment training and things, but you
hear of cases where high profile people have certain words
and phrases that they use if they were ever to
be taken hostage or to be in situations where certain
phrases or certain answers to questions mean or trigger certain things, right, Right,

(03:24):
And so I don't know, maybe we're at the point
where if you and I are talking, it's like, hey,
if we talk about a particular thing, or I say hey,
how are you, You're like this, yeah, or something weird, like, yeah,
the cat's really not well at the moment, I don't know, like, oh,
I know it's jack good, the cat's not well, Like
maybe we're at that point. I truly don't know. But yeah,

(03:45):
the fact that these people got this and you know,
made it that far is kind of scary.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
That's really intriguing, as it's going to be a huge
challenge I think, and and like you say that, you know,
this is just the tip of the iceberg. You can
imagine all the kinds of applications that this could be
used to to impersonate leaders or banks or whatever in
the future. It's going to be concerning. Hey, Samsung is
exploring new wearables, so technology that will use AI and

(04:14):
could kind of replace smartphones or be the new smartphone.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Yeah, they said this week that they're investigating a whole
range of things, and I thought their list was kind
of interesting. Honestly, Samsung does some really cool stuff. I know,
we talk a lot about Apple and they are a big, trilling,
multi three trilling dollar company, but man, Samsung really does
push the mark. I mean, they've got like the folding iphonees,
folding iPhones. Listen to me, the folding phones that you know,

(04:39):
turn out into like a tablet. Very cool stuff they are.
They definitely lead the way. They're one of the first
with smart watches, and so now they're thinking what could
we do and they're looking at glasses like everybody, but
they're also thinking about AI enabled airrings, which I thought
was really interesting. Yeah, what do you like you've got
like a little kind of computer attached to you? E.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
I'm not convinced by that way.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
It's it's more like you. It's it's we know that
close enough that it could be used as a microphone,
could probably do some interesting things with a speaker. It's interesting,
interesting take. Also looking at watchers rings, we've kind of
seen some of that, but also a necklace. Maybe you
could make the necklace style. I don't know if you've
ever realized if you watch as much reality TV as

(05:22):
I do, Jack, but they've started to give reality TV
stars on these shows necklaces.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Oh because I put the microphone on their acundents. Yeah
yeahah yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
And you know, so then it doesn't look like you're
watching like someone. But they've all got these kind of
somewhat ridiculous looking necklaces. Maybe that'll be what we all say,
like Love Island style necklaces.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Maybe well, given I thought that like smartphones would never
catch on, I'm probably not the one who should be
making any any predictions about what technology is going to
define our future. But yeah, not personally givens by either
necklaces or ear rings glasses to me. Yeah, but okay,
we'll see, Thank you so much. Paul paulstin House is
our textpert.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to news talks that'd be from nine am Saturday, or
followed a podcast on iHeartRadio
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.