I just tried notebookLM! 🤯

[Félix]

Google just released a new 'thing' called notebook LM, I just tried it two minutes ago. It's free and accessible like google-drive or google-docs. 

You give it some material on a subject: files, PDFs, text, URLs, etc. and it helps you do document and research that subject.

It's got a button called 'generate audio podcast' and if you click it, an AI generates an audio podcast of two people discussing the subject! 

So I tried it by giving it the URL to the new LeoJS website I just did.

Here's the result as a link to my google-drive copy for you to listen to: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15VLtEM2GPS52-Ja4W2Yfr4-2IcccCVxz/view?usp=sharing

All in two minutes! 

(it does have trouble with words like @file, @clean with an arobas, or a dot in quotes "." when talking about pressing the dot...etc.)

Anyhow, It's kinda creepy what is possible now, and the fact that I did not think such a thing was even possible two minutes ago, and now, I'm actually listening to it!  😲

Félix

[Edward K. Ream]

On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 9:52 PM Félix <felix...@gmail.com> wrote:

Google just released a new 'thing' called notebook LM, I just tried it two minutes ago. It's free and accessible like google-drive or google-docs. 

You give it some material on a subject: files, PDFs, text, URLs, etc. and it helps you do document and research that subject.

It's got a button called 'generate audio podcast' and if you click it, an AI generates an audio podcast of two people discussing the subject! 

So I tried it by giving it the URL to the new LeoJS website I just did.

Here's the result as a link to my google-drive copy for you to listen to: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15VLtEM2GPS52-Ja4W2Yfr4-2IcccCVxz/view?usp=sharing

All in two minutes! 

Wow. 

Some quibbles:

- The dialog says "web pages are outlines in disguise." This is a complete fail in terms of meaning.

  The original Aha was that webs (that is Knuth's WEB source code) are outlines in disguise.

- Multiple views of code come from clones, not detached body panes.

- The dialog makes a hash of @clean vs @file.

- The dialog is way too vague about Leo's scripting api.

These quibbles aside, this dialog might be a better intro than any I've ever written.

I'm uneasy though:

- Isn't there a bit of sexism in the video? The male schooling the female?

- There is a breathless quality to the video. I wonder what this technology would do with the average conspiracy theory.

Edward

[Edward K. Ream]

On Tuesday, September 17, 2024 at 7:13:57 AM UTC-5 Edward K. Ream wrote:

>> On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 9:52 PM Félix wrote:
>> Google just released a new 'thing' called notebook LM...
> > Here's the result: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15VLtEM2GPS52-Ja4W2Yfr4-2IcccCVxz/view?usp=sharing

> These quibbles aside, this dialog might be a better intro than any I've ever written. I'm uneasy though...

I should emphasize that all these AI tools should be valuable as starting points. For example, my friend Phil Straus, an experienced public speaker, used an AI to suggest a speech for a memorial service for a mutual friend.

Phil said the AI did a great job of organizing some preliminary notes. His eulogy was completely natural, presumably because Phil edited it.

The same strategy should work with a blog about Leo or LeoJS. Revise the results until they pass expert judgement. Revise the settings to eliminate any hint of sexism.

Edward

[Félix]

Ha! I did also notice the same exact quibbles as you've underlined!

Of course, I posted it just for the laughs out of astonishment of discovering such a technology - but if I fine-tuned its sources. (I included way too much about the history and extraneous parts of the website) I could maybe produce various sound files, from which a montage/collage could be produces with only the curated, good parts.

Maybe a project for next weekend!  :)

Félix

[Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas]

Hi,

On 17/09/24 11:04, Edward K. Ream wrote:
> I should emphasize that all these AI tools should be valuable as
> starting points.

[...]

>
> The same strategy should work with a blog about Leo or LeoJS. Revise
> the results until they pass expert judgement. Revise the settings to
> eliminate any hint of sexism.

Agreed. The main problem I see with AI is when is unchecked, in several
senses: the information it produces, the expropriation of value from
creators who gave unwillingly training data, the huge ecological cost
and waste behind it, the race, gender and other bias it confirms, among
a long list of problems. The critical approaches from initiatives
feminist[1] and decolonial[2] perspectives can help us to keep AI, its
hype/dangers and uncritical uses at bay.

BTW, the Leo podcast is pretty impressive and hopefully we will go to
other AIs, like Engelbart's Augmented Intelligence, underlining the
human and communities role in the computational labor, data production
and curation, hopefully for the benefit of everyone instead of the
enrichment of few (as usual).

[1] https://feministai.pubpub.org/
[2]
https://botpopuli.net/artificial-intelligence-and-the-feminist-decolonial-imagination/

Cheers,

Offray

[Félix]

Thanks for your insights Offray,

Perhaps AI is also like the advent of electricity, the internet or nuclear power: potential for great positives, but also negatives, if unchecked, or in the hands of mal-aligned intentions/people 

Glad you've enjoyed that little audio-experiment with that podcast! I might do a little more in the following weeks! 

Félix