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NotebookLM's automatically generated podcasts are surprisingly effective

simonwillison.net

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Re: NotebookLM's automatically generated podcasts are surprisingly effective

#251

Post by grugagag »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #218
MrScruff wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it comes down to your area of interest. As a musician and music lover, I spend a significant amount of time trying to find or create music that is both original and good. AI generated music can be a competent imitation of well established ideas and forms, but that’s of zero value to me - I’m not looking for ‘more of the same’ - quite the opposite.

Of course. In my case, I'm not saying that I could do with AI music in any context either. Sometimes I play music in the living room, and I pay real attention to it, obviously AI won't do there. But when I'm using the music just as a background for exercising? Then sure, why not.

So you’re basically saying filler music, elevator music, backgrouound noise or whatever names it may come under. Since there’s already so much of it out there and since AI one isn’t novel in any way, I have a hard time understanding why you’d choose AI generated one.

Re: NotebookLM's automatically generated podcasts are surprisingly effective

#252

Post by blurbleblurble »

roywiggins wrote: post #9
ColinEberhardt wrote: post #3

I don’t think this is all that impressive, the generated podcast is pretty shallow - lots of ‘whoa meta’ and the word ‘like’ thrown into every sentence. Yes, it will generate a middle-of-the-road waffling podcast, but not one with any real depth.

The content is nothing that special these days, you could get it out of Gemini or Claude probably- but the audio affect is awfully convincing. You can compare it to Google's Illuminate which also generates conversations by summarizing texts but in a much straighter, less fluffy way. It's less shallow but in some ways less compelling: https://illuminate.google.com/home

This is awesome, thanks for sharing

Re: NotebookLM's automatically generated podcasts are surprisingly effective

#253

Post by dannyw »

weberer wrote: post #245

If you get a "Service unavailable" message when trying it out, it means you are region locked because you're in the EU. Clear your cookies and use an American VPN to access it. Its very annoying, but at least the workaround isn't too much of a headache. Yet.

Don’t worry, the EU regulators will probably “fix” that workaround soon.

Re: NotebookLM's automatically generated podcasts are surprisingly effective

#254

Post by DanHulton »

richardw wrote: post #45
timoth3y wrote: post #21

NotebookLM's is incredibly good at generating the affect and structure of a quality podcast. This is in-line with all art, music, and video created by LMM at the moment. They are imitating a structure and affect, the quality of the content is largely irrelevant. I think the interesting thing is that most people don't really care, and AI is not to blame for that. Most books published today have the affect of a book, b…

I think and hope that you're wrong. There's always been cheese, and there's a lot of it now. But there is still a market for top-notch insight. For example, Perun. This guy delivers an hourlong presentation on (mostly) the Ukraine-Russia war and its pure quality. Insights, humour, excellent delivery, from what seems to be a military-focused economist/analyst/consultant. We're a while away from some bot taking this ki…

I keep seeing this asertion: "the robots will get there" (or its ilk), and it's starting to feel really weird to me.

It's an article of faith -- we don't KNOW that they're going to get there. They're going to get better, almost certainly, but how much? How much gas is left in the tank for this technique?

Honestly, I think the fact that every new "groundbreaking" news release about LLMs has come alongside a swath of discussion about how it doesn't actually live up to the hype, that it achieves a solid "mid" and stops there, I think this means it's more likely that the robots AREN'T going to get there some day. (Well, not unless there's another breakthrough AI technique.)

Either way, I still think it's interesting that there's this article of faith a lot of us have "we're not there now, but we'll get there soon" that we don't really address, and it really colors the discussion a certain way.

Re: NotebookLM's automatically generated podcasts are surprisingly effective

#255

Post by [deleted] »

timoth3y wrote: post #21

NotebookLM's is incredibly good at generating the affect and structure of a quality podcast. This is in-line with all art, music, and video created by LMM at the moment. They are imitating a structure and affect, the quality of the content is largely irrelevant. I think the interesting thing is that most people don't really care, and AI is not to blame for that. Most books published today have the affect of a book, b…

[deleted]

Re: NotebookLM's automatically generated podcasts are surprisingly effective

#256

Post by corobo »

klabb3 wrote: post #234
corobo wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Must have been prompted to be an American podcaster. Bring on the one that's all British and snarky!

Might be hard to spot if you’re American in the US, but LLMs feel very American even outside of region and language. Concretely, I have to constantly ask for recipes to be changed to metric. Less concretely, the undertones and mannerisms of politeness, positivity and “excitedness” comes across as very American to me, probably even within the rest of the Anglosphere. How would I describe it? Maybe similar to how you’d…

Oh absolutely. Early on into the AI craze I tried to use it to summarise my messages[1] and it made them overly fluffy and weird.

Anyone receiving the message would instantly clock that I didn't write it - even with a prompt longer than the original message trying to massage out all of the Americanisms and false enthusiasm. Not a use case that works for me, haha.

[1]: I was trying to use it to shorten my "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter" waffling.

Re: NotebookLM's automatically generated podcasts are surprisingly effective

#257

Post by inquirerGeneral »

[deleted] wrote: post #244
richardw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think and hope that you're wrong. There's always been cheese, and there's a lot of it now. But there is still a market for top-notch insight. For example, Perun. This guy delivers an hourlong presentation on (mostly) the Ukraine-Russia war and its pure quality. Insights, humour, excellent delivery, from what seems to be a military-focused economist/analyst/consultant. We're a while away from some bot taking this ki…

[deleted]

[dead]

Re: NotebookLM's automatically generated podcasts are surprisingly effective

#258

Post by grugagag »

alickz wrote: post #209
timoth3y wrote: post #21

NotebookLM's is incredibly good at generating the affect and structure of a quality podcast. This is in-line with all art, music, and video created by LMM at the moment. They are imitating a structure and affect, the quality of the content is largely irrelevant. I think the interesting thing is that most people don't really care, and AI is not to blame for that. Most books published today have the affect of a book, b…

I think the average person is more interested in the output than in the process e.g. more people want to read The Shining than want to read about how The Shining was written

Id say most people skip the reading part and watch the movie instead.

Re: NotebookLM's automatically generated podcasts are surprisingly effective

#259

Post by triceratops »

phreeza wrote: post #69
lynx23 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, hardcore history? I dont even remember where I heard from him, but I think it was a Lex podcast. So I checked out hardcore history and was mightily disappointed. To my ears, he is rambling 3 hours about a topic, more or less unstructured and very long-winded, so that I basically remember nothing after having finished the podcast. I tried several times again, because I wanted it to be good. But no, not the…

Yea there are much better examples of quality history podcasts, that are non-rambling. E.g. Mike Duncan podcasts (Revolutions, History of Rome), or the Age of Napoleon podcast. But even those are really just very good digestions of various source materials, which seems like something where LLMs will eventually reach quite a good level.

It's interesting I have the exact opposite opinion. I'm sure Mike Duncan works very hard, and does a ton of research, and his skill is beyond anything I can do. But his podcasts ultimately sound like a list of bullet points being read off a Google Doc. There's no color, personality, or feeling. I might as well have a screen reader narrate a Wikipedia article to me. I can barely remember anything I heard by him.

Carlin on the other hand, despite the digressions and rambling, manages to keep you engaged and really feel the events.

Re: NotebookLM's automatically generated podcasts are surprisingly effective

#260

Post by mistrial9 »

timoth3y wrote: post #21

NotebookLM's is incredibly good at generating the affect and structure of a quality podcast. This is in-line with all art, music, and video created by LMM at the moment. They are imitating a structure and affect, the quality of the content is largely irrelevant. I think the interesting thing is that most people don't really care, and AI is not to blame for that. Most books published today have the affect of a book, b…

> the interesting thing is that most people don't really care

no one has gotten feedback from "most people" .. this is raw hyperbole

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