That’s right, I think I’m going to pack it in. I’m going to quit podcasting1. Why bother?
For the last few years we’ve been hearing about the wonders—and dangers—of AI. I’ve taken most of these with a grain of salt because…well…I’m an enthusiast of all things technology. I’m a fan of the future. Whenever I see some new invention or technology, while others are pulling their hair out and screaming about the end of the world or society as we know it, I’m looking at it in awe and wondering what they will think of next! I get excited.
AI is no different. I use it all the time with my work and marvel at how much time and effort it has saved me. I was never worried that AI would come and take my job. I’m a podcaster. There is no way a robot can replace what I do, right?
RIGHT?
ENTER: NotebookLM from Google AI.
F@#K!
I mean really, in all sincerity. F@#$%*^K!
NotebookLM is a personalized AI research assistant powered by Google’s most capable model, Gemini 1.5 Pro.
I saw the tweets and listened to some of the samples and they were impressive! People were uploading documents, slides, charts, and more to the language model. The output was an audio overview or ‘deep dive’ between two AI characters. But it wasn’t just a straight synopsis of the material, it was a ‘thoughtful’ discussion full of insight, external references and—for lack of a better word—’banter’ on the subject.
Now at this point I’m still in the impressed stage. I mean it can’t be that easy. You must need to jump through hoops to get an outcome that is anywhere close to sounding good right?
RIGHT?
I decided to see for myself. After all. It’s google. It’s likely free. I looked it up and found the site.
Step 1: Add Your Content
First step is to create a notebook by uploading or adding a source. It can be a doc, pdf, txt, markdown, slide, copied text, even a link. I decided to copy the link to my previous blog entry about my trip to Winnipeg. Easy Peasy. I suggest you read—or at least skim—that entry before continuing to the next step.
Step 2: Choose Your Output
Once the link was added, I clicked the Notebook guide link in the bottom right and the LM gave me a bunch of options to create an FAQ, Study Guide, Table of Contents, Timeline, or Briefing Doc from the content. But what I was interested in was the ‘Audio Overview’ on the right side of the screen. I clicked that, then LITERALLY 5 minutes later I got the following output:
Step 3: Quit Podcasting
It was a 9 minute conversation between two people who didn’t exist talking about my blog entry. They were charming, irreverent at times, and engaging. The more I heard, the more I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. There were a couple of hiccups, but for the most part it sounded real and it sounded great!
So where does that leave me? Is it ironic that I’m having an existential crisis because of two podcasters that don’t exist?
DAMN YOU AI!
- I’m not really quitting…just venting. ↩︎
What are you thinking?