Google NotebookLM is a tool that allows students to create a custom conversational AI that’s trained on a course’s materials. Users can then get summaries of the materials, as well as have a personalize chatbot that they can ask questions.

One of NotebookLM’s features is that is can produce an audio that sounds like a podcast where the hosts are discussing the course materials. It provides a recap and summary of the information in a conversational tone. For the most part, the speakers explain the major ideas and examples from the course materials. They also add in some context from outside of the course materials.

I uploaded the first 5 weeks of course materials to this tool, which included the first lecture (introducing the core concepts), the second one, and the first assigned reading. Listen to this tool’s outputs and compare them to your experience as a student in the classroom.

Listen our class’ audio overview:

Google NotebookLM audio overview.wav

Download the transcript:

Google NotebookLM audio overview.txt

Discussion: What are your immediate impressions to the audio?

• The class is split as to whether the audio sounds real or fake. Those who think it’s fake note that there are glitches in their speaking, that there is an occasional third voice, and that they never take breaths
• The sections about magic and social media are weird and are not in the source material.

In-class exercise: Do a formal analysis of the audio