HELLO FUTURE: The AI Spy Game — Inside the Next Espionage Revolution

Speaker 1 (00:07):
What does the CIA do? What does the CIA do
with artificial intelligence? Will the CIA have robots? Will the
CIA have robots spying on other robots? Which robots in
the matrix will spy on the CIA robots of a
foreign government's robots like China. Hello, Future, it's me Kevin.
This is a dispatch from the Digital Frontier. The planet
is Earth. The year is twenty twenty five. My name
is Kevin Sirilli and my guest today I'm telling you, folks,
he's out of the agency and he is talking. He's
got this new book out. It's called The Fourth Intelligence Revolution,
The Future of Espionage and the Battle to Save America
by Anthony Vincey. Doctor Anthony Vincey went to the London
School of Economics, but he got his PhD. He's a
guy who I've come to know over the last several
months who has one of those jobs in like the
thriller novels, that you don't even know what they do,
and you're not supposed to know what they do. He
is a former CIA officer and the first Chief Technology
Officer of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency NGA. I have
no idea what that is. I had to google It. Anthony,
thank you so much for coming on the show. Congrats
on the book. We're going to talk all about it.
First things. First, explain to me what the chief Technology
Officer of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency does.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Thanks for having me, Kevin, appreciate it. Good question, Thank you. So,
the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency is the agency that does
satellite imagery analysis, drone imagery analysis. They analyze geospatial data.
Think of like Google Maps or Google Earth. When you
see that, we'll imagine that with multi billion dollar government
satellites that can see the world in various ways. They
have classified information coming in from drones and people have
to analyze that. Well. I got asked to come in
as the actually the associate director of Capabilities and then
the chief Technology Officer of NGA because the director at
the time was realizing that, yes, NNGA was the best
in the world that had ever done that kind of analysis.
But what he was seeing was that there was all
these new commercial satellites out there and other capabilities that
were about to overwhelm the agency with all this data,
they would never possibly be able to analyze it all.
And he was wondering, Okay, what am I going to
do about this, and I was a guy who had
been into intelligence. I was a case officer, and I
also ran a tech startup, so I kind of knew
about both worlds. And I came in and said, look,
we need to use artificial intelligence to do this analysis
and to help us do this work. And so my
job there was to figure out ways to bring AI
in oftentimes from commercial places like not developed by Blockheed
Martin or something like develop by some guys you know,
wearing hoodies in Silicon Valley, bring that into this classified
intelligence agency and get these analysts to use it and
do that securely and so that we could do our
jobs better as intelligence.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
See, this is really interesting, and as I've come to
know you, this was very counter culture from what I've gathered,
and your personality coming from the startup world, coming from
I mean, I'm going to say you think more like
an entrepreneur and like a small business person also an
economic background. But it seems very rebellious and it seems
almost like you were You must have been up against
a lot of bureaucracy to be start talking about artificial
intelligence and to have reports that are generated not by
humans but by AI. Here you are, you know, the
Paul Revere of this, of the intelligence agents saying use AI,
use AI, and then kind of by the time you leave,
everyone's using AI and intelligence agencies are reading reports that
say no human hands have touched this report.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah. Look, it was even worse than what you're suggesting.
I mean people were sort of saying, who is this guy?
You know, at the time, I was sort of thirty
eight thirty nine years old, so I was, you know,
younger than most people in leadership by decades I had
been in intelligence, hadn't spent my entire life in it, though,
whereas you know a lot of people had spent twenty
thirty years doing this, and legitimately we're experts at this,
and they were looking at this technology and literally thinking
themselves and saying often in meetings, you're going to get
people killed, like do you know what you're doing here? Wow?
Like it was and they weren't wrong, like I'll say
that right now. Their heart was in the right place.
But I was taking a step back and I was like,
you're you're right. Maybe today this technology is not there,
but tomorrow this technology will be there. And our competitors China,
Russia and so forth. They're going to use this technology
and if we don't get ready today, we're going to
be left behind. So yes, maybe there's risk today, but
there's even more risks tomorrow, so we need to do it.
And that was really what it took to start to
convince people over time, and to your point, we did
finally get to a point where you know, we're the
director announced, another director announced that you know, there are
intelligence reports being made with quote unquote no human hands
a touch. That was nine years later. So wow, you know,
nine years from when it went in to when that happened.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
But just even I mean clearly you think like a
futurist because you were able to see your understanding of
the technology, your understanding of the frontier industries. You were
able to say, this is coming and so it might
not make sense to you now, but if you're not
thinking like this, you're gonna get screwed and that will
cost lives. That will be even even more dangerous. So
you write in your book, and again the book it
called by this book and I don't push books for anyone,
but this it's not written like a think tank book.
It's genuinely written for people who are not familiar people
like me who are not familiar with this world at all,
and it's very easy to understand. So in the book
you write about how AI is changing everything, but you
really focus in on espionage from spy satellites, deep fake deception,
the world's oldest profession is finally entering the digital era.
But what I find fascinating and I want you to
get into the matrix a little bit, and Ukraine might
be a good example of how to illustrate this is
how you write about Essentially AI is going to be
spying on AI, and the human spy is going to
be managing the AI, but then also going to be
managed by the AI. And then my head starts to
explode because I'm thinking, if they're spying in the matrix
of AI, if the US is spying on Russia's AI,
how do they get in? How do they get out?
And it's it's crazy, But try to speak to us,
you know, like we're an eleven year like you're an
eleven year old kid. To speak to us at a
very easy, basic level.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
We are all witnessing this revolution and artificial intelligence. When
you get on chat ept this was science fiction a
few years ago. That revolution isn't just happening in the
wider economy. It's happening in espionage. And the same thing
we're all seeing where we talk about how AI is
going to take over people's jobs. You know, it's going
to do with consultants, dude, it's going to do with
lawyer's dud. It's going to do what you.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Know, you do, what Kevin's really does. No bots taking
Kevin's really place. Go ahead, Anthony.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
That same thing's happening in the world of intelligence, and
it's in AI is going to do what an intelligence
analyst does. It's going to do what these jobs do.
And so what I think is going to have happen
is you're gonna have an AI that helps to collect information,
collects it on its own, is maybe in a drone
collecting from a sensor. Then it's gonna send that drone
footage to an AI analyst that's going to analyze that.
That AI analyst is going to send it to another AI,
maybe out to a drone that's going to use that
for targeting, or maybe out to a geopolitical AI analyst
that's going to make a decision about how to balance
the risk with something with Russia. So it's going to
do what's called the entire intelligence cycle, so from collecting
to analyzing to disseminating information. Right. But here's the thing,
the bad guys are going to do the same thing.
China is going to have an AI that collects information,
that analyzes information, that disseminates that information back maybe to
another drone. Right, And so you're going to be in
this world where we're both kind of doing that against
each other. So my AI is spying on your AI
and that and your AI is spying on my AI.
And so that is what I'm talking about when I
say these machines are going to spy on machines, and
it is inevitable and people are going to take a
back seat. That doesn't mean people aren't going to do things.
People are just going to do a very different job.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
Is it a new front of conflicts? Is the virtual
world ais are also going to be making decisions on
their own you just alluded to, which is so essentially,
if an AI in the virtual world is triggered to
make a reaction against another AI, this is being somewhat cavalier,
but like the human could be eaten donuts in the
office and drinking coffee. Meanwhile, there's this whole virtual espionage
cyberfront that's happening that's very hot that the average American,
or the average Chinese person, or the average Russian doesn't
even register because it's operating in a realm and a
matrix that is is so beyond almost our human understanding.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
That is exactly what's going to happen. That's why already
a preview of this in financial markets, hedge funds, these
quantitative hedge funds have these technical systems ais essentially trading
against each other in this competition while people are sort
of sitting back in the office and they don't even
know sometimes how these trades are going to happen, and
it's happening so fast, it's maybe happening at a micro
second level. A person couldn't even understand what was happening.
We couldn't keep up with it. So it's already here
in some spaces, and it's going to be here in
the intelligence space very soon.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Do you think the US is well positioned to navigate
and hopefully innovate and lead this transformation.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yes, we are in America already at the lead in
artificial intelligence. The question is can we maintain that lead
because China is trying to accelerate to beat us over time?
And can we implement that AI technology in the national
security world? And are there enough kind of rebels and
people who are willing to take those risks in the
government to implement this stuff in the ways we tried
to do at MnGa, and I know other people are
trying to do But can we do that faster than
the Chinese or other adversaries will do. That's how we're
going to kind of maintain that lead.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
The reviews for your book are candidly just so impressive
and congratulations. David Ignatious columns for The Washington Post, author
of Phantom Orbit. He says Vincy has been on the
front lines of this new intelligence war, and he gives
readers a rare inside look. He takes us into the
new world of espionage, where satellites and drones and ubiquitous
surveillance devices from the eerie background, but where the abiding
rule of the spy game remains simply, ye shall know
the truth. General H. R. McMaster Awesome Force. He's the
former US National Security Advisor, also an author himself. He
calls the book compelling the fourth intelligence revolutions should be read, discussed,
and most importantly heated. Chris Miller great person. He wrote
chip War, The Fight for the World's most critical technologies.
He says, from spy satellite to social media, you do
talk about TikTok in the book. Technology is transforming spycraft
and empowering our adversaries. Anthony Vincy knows the peril we
face as adversaries use AI to sift and analyze enormous
quantities of our data. The reaction has been so so strong,
So congratulations to you on that. As you've been promoting
the book and discussing it. What's been the surprising response
in the early reaction to you in terms of the
types of questions people are asking you. Because you've been
on the inside, now you're back on the outside. And
what's surprised you about how this is being received? Is
it how little we all know about this?

Speaker 2 (12:37):
Two surprising things. One is the book is selling best
in kind of the AI category. Interesting, and I think
people are so concerned with this and starting to realize
AI is going to be everywhere, including in espionage, and
that's kind of becoming the driver for these kinds of things,
So that's been surprising to me versus people traditionally reading
about military books. The other thing is how concerned people
are with some of these threats. Peace came out in
the daily mail that I did in the book that
garnered a lot of interest that the Chinese are collecting
information about our DNA. They have these companies like BGI Genomics.
They collect genetic information globally. So it's like we think about,
you know, our healthcare information. We were thinking like insurance
information or something being collected, or financial information being collected
and stolen off computers. You never think to yourself like, oh, well,
when I send off that that DNA test to see
who my ancestors are, like that might end up in
their hands too, And like people are starting to see
these threats really crazy.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
I mean it is legitimately crazy. I don't want shijingping
no and the delco secrets of the family. I mean
that's crazy that people don't think like that and horrifying.
And now you're an expert audit.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah, the deliverer bad news, Like, hey, there's this other
thing you weren't worrying about, Now you should worry about it.
And you also do have a lo tips in the
book about what you can do to protect yourself.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
Well, you're going to come back on and give us
some of those tips, and I want to hear them,
and Anthony's going to be with us over the next
couple of weeks. We're gonna keep because there's so much
in this book that I want to dive into. I
want to dive into space. I want to dive into
citizen intelligence, which I want to talk to you about.
That's where we can get the tips. But it really
is as I'm reading this, I'm thinking Tom Cruse should
read this because it's I'm a huge fan of Mission Impossible,
Art mirrors, real life, whatnot. But you actually, I think
you met Tom Cruise.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
I did get an opportunity to meet him, and I
thought he was so kind. And where did you meet him? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Where did you meet him?

Speaker 2 (14:39):
I was I was lucky enough to meet him on
the set of that movie being filmed.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Mission Impossible.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Yeah, that's awesome, and he's so common, such a professional.
I really admire the guy. What a great movie start.
I watch any Tom Cruise movie that.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
You know, Anthony, I think that your background could inspire
many a great thriller if I do say so myself,
Anthony Vincy, buy the book, read the book, give the
book for holidays coming up, the Fourth Intelligence Revolution, the
future of espionage, and the Battle to save America. Can't
recommend this book enough. You will walk away feeling frightened, hopeful,
and a lot smarter.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Thank you, Anthony, thank you, thanks so much for having
me