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Joe Rogan · 2024-05-08

Joe Rogan Experience #2147 - Mike Baker

Ex-CIA officer Mike Baker breaks down AI deepfakes, campus protests, Gaza, Ukraine corruption, and Chinese tech dominance with Joe Rogan.

Joe Rogan Experience #2147 - Mike Baker
The guest

Mike Baker: Former CIA covert operations officer, co-founder and CEO of intelligence/security firm Portman Square Group, and host of The President's Daily Brief podcast.

What this episode covers

Mike Baker returns to discuss how AI face-swap, voice-cloning, and deepfake technology are democratizing disinformation and creating national security threats. The conversation ranges across CIA disguise techniques, the funding networks behind campus protests, and a deep breakdown of the Israel-Hamas conflict including Hamas leadership wealth and Iranian regime influence. They cover corruption in Ukraine aid, China's dominance of rare earth magnets and electric vehicles, and DARPA's AI dogfighting jet. Baker repeatedly returns to his core theme: individual responsibility to be curious and verify information in an era of foreign-influenced social media and TikTok. He closes with shameless marketing for his new YouTube show, The Situation Report.

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Big reveals from this episode

  • Voice-cloning AI now needs only seconds of audio (down from 30 seconds) to mimic someone's full vocal range across emotions.
  • Over a hundred readily available apps can do face-swap technology, used by criminals to spoof finance directors and authorize fraudulent transfers.
  • Baker claims the top leaders of Hamas are collectively worth around 11 billion dollars, funded by Iran (~quarter billion/year) and Qatar (up to 400 million/year).
  • A Palestinian survey post-Oct 7 reportedly found over 70% of Gaza residents supported Hamas's October 7 attacks.
  • China controls 92% of rare earth magnet materials and manufacturing, critical for submarines, F-35s, and appliances.
  • DARPA's AI/machine-learning modified F-16 (X-62) flew real dogfights against human-crewed F-16s and was undefeated in virtual tests.
  • A former FBI Twitter analyst (Dan Woods) estimated as much as 80% of Twitter accounts were probably bots in 2022.
  • The US government is trying to get China and Russia to sign a treaty ensuring AI never independently controls nuclear weapons systems.

Worth remembering

  • Baker cites IQ distribution stats: about 2% of population is between 55-70, 34% below 100, with a sweet zone between 115-130.
  • The CIA has a disguise unit, run by Mrs. Mendez, with a longstanding liaison to Hollywood for special effects and makeup.
  • Americans are spotted abroad by habits like leaning on walls, eating while walking, switching fork hands, and wanting ice in water.
  • A Ukrainian politician was filmed driving a roughly 600,000-dollar Rolls-Royce Spectre, raising corruption questions.
  • The PLO was originally created in the early 1970s essentially as a puppet under Egyptian control.
  • Hamas won the 2006 Gaza election, then fought and expelled the PLO/Palestinian Authority, splitting governance between Gaza and the West Bank.
  • Baker jokes about Trudeau and Canada being 'in a cult' while discussing political dysfunction.
  • China has developed electric car suspension so advanced you can balance glasses on the hood while driving over speed bumps.
  • The Navy's Manta is an unmanned underwater vehicle powered by 'energy harvesting' from salinity gradients in the water.
  • Baker references the 2004 Tic Tac UAP incident as one sighting he still finds genuinely hard to explain away.