I was listening to Leo Laport yesterday, Friday, on his Intelligent Machines Podcast, which used to be This week in Google, and he had a guest on from Google, Steven Johnson, and the conversation was all about Google NotebookLM. Now this is a show all about AI, but it was clear from the start, NotebookLM, the subject, is not your ordinary AI, this AI has been designed, without the benafit of a LLM or Large laguage Model. It seems to be a clone of Gemini but without the access to a huge global knowledge base.
Instead the interface expects you to provide the information to answer questions. This is done by linking files, text YouTube, and of course a heap of word, and Google docs, alas no Apple pages yet, although it runs very well in Safari.
Then there is the usual question box, if you have provided enough knowledge is gives a detailed response, but only from the information you give.
This means no waffle, no linking to stuff that not realy relevant, of wishfull thinking on behalf of the AI, the responce is very factual.
Also there is a detailed citation of relevant information in the response, so you can easily see where the information comes from.
Next is the insanely useful creation of a podcast from the links given. Now NotebookLM makes a file up for each collection, they are separate, and can be used again in other queries but these folders as of yet can’t be linked, you have to make a new subject and reattach relavant files. See todays Audio file, two AI people talking about me.
Now the real fun begins by asking questions via the AI, from here it sounds and feels like Gemini, I asked Gemini earlier about this and it confirmed that NoteboookLM is based on a subset of it, but without the Vast internet Knowledge base other than what you link.
It goes without saying using Google Docs, and othe google files make life easier, but NotebookLM can take straight copied text, and PDF files. So using it on a Mac is not so bad.
Now another very useful tool is the mind map showing the links between each file on the sources window. Mind blowing!
So will I be using it, well yes, I plan on taking all my saved Apple Notes on a specific subject, and copying and pasting it in, plus my Apple Pages and making pdf files, and asking question of it.
The Benefit is something I have been looking for in Apple for all my notes, and I have a lot.
So go over to Google NotebookLM and load it up, I use Chrome in the begining, but trialing it on both Safari, and the iPhone app, was instant all my files were there as my Mac knows Google and linked in perfectly. I walked my dog listening to the AI generated podcast, on my iPhone, see above, and was amazed at the way two AI voices could pull the information together so well. I also started a new file ready for my return home.
As always memory is limited, so any answer needs saving as a note, otherwise its lost on reloading.
One area I fully intend to follow up on is the use by large corporations who have vast repositoties of data in the form od articles, research documents, comments and who knows what else, Google NotebookLM is made for them.
One last thing Steven Johnson writes a lot, and also used Substack, well worth following.
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