I heard about NotebookLM when Steven Johnson, the popular science writer, was a guest on the NYT tech podcast, “Hard Fork”. He is a famously obsessive note taker. So Google approached him to lead their project to create NotebookLM. The idea behind turning text into a podcast came from his understanding that people learn best through dialog. So if something could turn your dry class notes into a dialog then you would learn the material better. At least that was my interpretation of what he was saying. So, Jim, when you remarked that the AI podcasters were more interesting than your notes, I think you made the point perfectly. That was the whole idea behind it. I really liked how you guys took this rather freaky tool and treated it with openness and without fear. It is a cool use of AI that was created, I think, with positive intent. Steven Johnson wasn’t all doom and gloom that AI was going to destroy us, blah blah. He was just trying to put it to good use.
I heard about NotebookLM when Steven Johnson, the popular science writer, was a guest on the NYT tech podcast, “Hard Fork”. He is a famously obsessive note taker. So Google approached him to lead their project to create NotebookLM. The idea behind turning text into a podcast came from his understanding that people learn best through dialog. So if something could turn your dry class notes into a dialog then you would learn the material better. At least that was my interpretation of what he was saying. So, Jim, when you remarked that the AI podcasters were more interesting than your notes, I think you made the point perfectly. That was the whole idea behind it. I really liked how you guys took this rather freaky tool and treated it with openness and without fear. It is a cool use of AI that was created, I think, with positive intent. Steven Johnson wasn’t all doom and gloom that AI was going to destroy us, blah blah. He was just trying to put it to good use.