Google’s NotebookLM Is An Insanely Good AI Offering

Also: From Kindle eBook to Podcast with Calibre and NotebookLM

Image by Midjourney

Step 1: My Own Words Back At Me

I’ve heard about NotebookLM before today, but today’s the day I gave it a try and it has absolutely blown my mind. The first Notebook I made was using a link to an article I wrote about my obsession with Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and the result was so good it was uncanny.

Medium doesn’t enable uploading simple audio, so I’ve added an image and converted the result into a YouTube video:

That‘s unbelievably good! And quite creepy, too, hearing my own story repeated back to me in the third person.

Step 2: A Text From The Internet

For my second attempt, I was inspired to try the full text of a book. I recently discussed Robert Whitaker’s book “Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America” (I’ve written about it before) with my son’s…