I Tried Google’s New One-Click AI Podcast Maker, and Now I Don’t Know What’s Real
I’ve caught a glimpse of how AI will change the world, and it fills me with both fear and amazement.
The source of my dismay is Google NotebookLM. NotebookLM takes an article, blog post, or web page and, with just one click, produces an audio file of two people talking about it that sounds so natural and realistic you wouldnât believe you werenât listening to two real people talking. They speak passionately and authoritatively about the subject, sounding engaged and interested, and riffing off of each other in such a natural way that it takes your breath away. There are even the little sniffles, slight mispronunciations, insults, and little giggles that make it all sound utterly human.
This is what happened. In my spare time I write a blog about Tai Chi called the Tai Chi NotebookSo, after hearing about NotebookLM (the ‘notebook’ in the name is purely coincidental), I thought I’d throw one of my Tai Chi articles at it, just to see what it did.
The AI ââhad taken my article and explained the key concepts through the conversational âpresenters.â It had even expanded on it in new and interesting directions that I hadnât thought of, drawing analogies between what I was saying and other areas of life. The presenters had even given practical examples of what I was talking about, and these examples werenât taken from my article, but from their broader knowledge of the subject. And most importantly, it didnât find anything wrong with it.
See what you think:
The Beginning of the AI ââEra
Of course, weâre still only at the beginning of the new AI era, with major players like ChatGPT, Gemini, and most recently Apple Intelligence just getting started. NotebookLM doesnât have many options right now â you can speed up or slow down playback and thatâs it â but it wonât be long before youâll be able to choose the type of presenter you want, their accent, their area of ââexpertise, their political leanings, their personality, and, once weâre using AI-generated video as standard, what they look like. As I wrote recently, AI is already being used in movies , and we can imagine a world where a movie is generated on the fly, with the plot changing to suit your whims.
Yes, this may sound scary to some, but movies are already flights of fancy that exist in the realm of the imagination. Itâs when AI invades the real world that I get most worried. I have a friend whose daughter is applying to college right now, and he tells me that many institutions are saying theyâre not requiring personal statements anymore because so many have been manipulated with AI that they donât make much sense.
All of which brings me back to NotebookLM. It can already produce a fantastic podcast of one of my articles at the touch of a button, and it feels like weâre on the cusp of a sea change in the way media is produced. Iâm not sure I know whatâs real anymore, and thatâs something Iâm just going to have to get used to.