Podcasts · 60 Minutes

05/18/2025: China’s Spies, The Future of Warfare, Sounds of Cajun Country

19 May 2025 · 43 min

Chinese hackers have infiltrated U.S. government systems, the private sector, and critical infrastructure, but hacking has not replaced Beijing’s pursuit of old-fashioned human intelligence, aka: spying. Norah O'Donnell reports on Chinese covert agents who monitor and influence events outside their own borders and surveil and intimidate Chinese dissidents right here in America.

Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi travels to Costa Mesa, CA, to meet with Palmer Luckey, the 32-year-old tech billionaire who founded Anduril, a defense products company that makes autonomous weapons, some already in use by the U.S. military and in the war in Ukraine. Alfonsi explores the artificial intelligence that powers Anduril's systems and reports on some of the company's most advanced weapons, including a submarine that operates without sailors. While several international groups refer to lethal autonomous weapons as "killer robots," Luckey says that these innovations represent the future of warfare.

Correspondent Jon Wertheim visits southwest Louisiana, where the sounds of Cajun and Zydeco music - long the soundtrack in this singular pocket of America - are experiencing a remarkable revival.