Fake AI “podcasters” are reviewing my book and it’s freaking me out

Enlarge / Hey, welcome back to “Talkin’Minesweeper,” the podcast where AI hosts discuss a book about Minesweeper! (credit: Aurich Lawson | Boss Fight Books)

As someone who has been following the growth of generative AI for a while now, I know that the technology can be pretty good (if not quite human-level) at quickly summarizing complex documents into a more digestible form. But I still wasn’t prepared for how disarmingly compelling it would be to listen to Google’s NotebookLM condense my recent book about Minesweeper into a tight, 12.5-minute, podcast-style conversation between two people that don’t exist.

There are still enough notable issues with NotebookLM’s audio output to prevent it from fully replacing professional podcasters any time soon. Even so, the podcast-like format is an incredibly engaging and endearing way to take in complex information and points to a much more personable future for generative AI than the dry back-and-forth of a text-based chatbot.