Chatbot becomes a teacher

Steven Johnson is a very meta-author. He often writes about science and technology, and likes to delve into the topics he covers and even utilize them to change the way books are written. A few years ago, a few months before ChatGPT launched and the AI ​​boom in the tech world, Johnson I got a job at the warehouse which sent him really, really deep down the AI ​​rabbit hole. And he never came back.

Now, in addition to writing books, Johnson also works at Google. He is part of a team building a product called NotebookLM — “Notebook,” as the team calls it. It’s a note-taking and research tool: You upload documents and import web links, and Notebook’s Gemini-powered AI helps you organize things, distill information, and better understand the topic. “They reached out to us,” Johnson says when I ask how he got involved with Google, “and they said, ‘Hey, you’ve been dreaming of the perfect software tool to help you organize your thoughts, write, make connections, and brainstorm. We think we can do that now.’” Johnson signed up and has been working at Google since summer 2022.

The product itself first launched in 2023 as Project Tailwind, and has since been rebranded and expanded in a huge way. Just last week, the team launched Audio Overviews, which generates a podcast—with two chatty hosts, lots of back-and-forth, and a truly unusual penchant for the phrases “deep dive” and “buckle up”—based on the information you provide. It’s fascinating, complicated, and gets better really rapid.

ON this episode Weather forecastJohnson joins to discuss his fascination with AI, his time at Google, and the present and future of NotebookLM. We discuss the complicated questions such a tool raises and whether it’s worth letting AI do your research and homework.

We also talk about how to make sure a tool like NotebookLM is both correct and fact-checkable, why contextual windows are more critical to the future of AI than most people realize, and how often AI podcast hosts should say “like” in conversation. We also talk about Johnson’s own process as a writer and creator and how AI is changing the way he works.

If you want to learn more about what we cover in this episode, here are some links to facilitate you get started: