Sending a link to a podcast that is all about you could be a good way to impress friends and relatives. But what if there isn’t a podcast like that? No issue. With NotebookLM, a Google AI technology, you can have two podcast hosts who sound professional praising you for a few minutes.
Though they lack names, the AI-generated hosts—a male and female team—sound fantastic and performed a fantastic job of characterizing my qualities in ways that nearly made me blush. I entered the URL of my online bio in this instance, but you may also import PDFs, Google Docs, Google Slides, YouTube videos, and audio files.
The two phony hosts examine the entire website when you load it, in addition to discussing what they discovered from your bio. I discovered this by providing links to two nearly identical biographies. Many of my newspaper pieces were referenced in the one that was hosted on my own website, Larrysworld.com. The ConnectSafely.org one was primarily about my and the organization’s efforts to promote online safety.
By mocking some of the things the AI discovered about me from my website, the phony hosts added some humor to the discussion. Additionally, they veered off topic, giving the impression that they were live podcast hosts.
I downloaded a sample electrician resume to get an idea of how it might be used to describe someone in a completely different kind of work. The two impostor hosts claimed that his resume served as the foundation for their program. They discussed their own experiences with electrical issues and gave a nice spin to his credentials.
Similar to my bio, the content used in this podcast was published by the subject of the description in both instances. It appears that these phony hosts did not conduct lateral investigation to verify the accuracy of the content.
After creating the podcast, you can share it with others by downloading it as an MP3 file. If so, eventually inform the audience that it was produced by artificial intelligence. Every podcast has the same two impostor hosts, except from ethics and honesty. Listeners will eventually discover that they aren’t real, even though they sound that way.
NotebookLM is available for free at notebooklm.google.
In addition to being a parlor trick, this tool has several real-world applications. I listened to the phony broadcasters provide me with an accurate synopsis while I loaded a Google PowerPoint deck. Even though they were obedient, the bios reflected what the AI tool had learned from the original content, albeit this does not imply that the original content was factual.
Additionally, I copied the URL of a PDF from the Pew Research website regarding a recent poll regarding the public’s perception of President-elect Trump’s national agenda. The fourteen-minute AI-generated podcast included the phony hosts’ analysis in addition to the facts taken from the survey report. According to the survey results, they discussed both Trump’s positive and bad traits, particularly as seen by the general population.
Additionally, NotebookLM included textual resources that were more comprehensive and helpful for anyone who wanted to comprehend the survey. This featured, among other things, a 115-word synopsis and AI-generated pages on important subjects, such as public trust in a seamless transition and post-election opinions on Trump and the country.
I was also able to generate a study guide, a table of contents, a timeline, a briefing document, and a frequently asked questions based on the PDF using NotebookLM. The study guide offered responses based on the PDF and posed questions regarding significant sections of the text. According to the material in the document, the chronology concentrated on the activities that preceded and followed the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Key themes were covered in the 740-word briefing document.
In case you were wondering, it came to the conclusion that while Democrats are deeply concerned about Trump’s election, Republicans are enthusiastic about it.
You can inquire about the document in addition to the information it offers. I appreciate that, in contrast to many other AIO tools that pull from the entire web, the responses to your queries are based on what is in the document. The fact that there is so little information is both a drawback and an advantage. The likelihood that you won’t receive a response makes it a bug. It’s a feature that increases the likelihood of receiving a reliable response because it depends on the document or webpage you’re evaluating. Nevertheless, NotebookLM clearly identifies the distinction between what it knows from the text and what it is deducing from it, even though it does interpret responses if it is unaware of them.
NotebookLM requires improvement as it is still in its infancy. For starters, the user interface is a little complicated on both smartphones and the web. Finding what I needed, such as the option to create that podcast or get summary information, required me to navigate around a few times. Additionally, it is not perfect, just like any other generative AI product. Please double-check each page as there is a caution that NotebookLM may make mistakes. Notwithstanding its flaws, this is a really amazing tool that demonstrates how generative AI can go beyond what OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google initially offered.
Disclosure: Google and other businesses, including some of Google’s rivals, provide financial assistance to ConnectSafely, a nonprofit organization dedicated to internet safety, of which Larry Magid is CEO.
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