Social work professor Ken Corvo’s article Prometheus on the Quad is generating a lot of attention given that we have decidedly moved into an anti-science environment where science is being attacked from both the left and right. Dr. Corvo explores this new reality, where it came from, what’s driving it, what harm it could bring, and what we may do about it.[1] What happened next surprised those of us at the FHL Foundation as well as Dr. Corvo.
A grantee who works in the sciences sent us a quick email that simply said, “Here’s the podcast of Prometheus.” What? A podcast? How is this possible? Well, as it turns out this grantee uploaded Prometheus to a web site run by Google called NotebookLM. Using Google’s AI engine, NotebookLM is able to convert different media such as text or even YouTube videos into a podcast. I listened to this AI-generated podcast and was blown away. Equally, Dr. Corvo was similarly blown away. Google bills NotebookLM as a research tool. Google uses the tagline “NotebookLM helps you understand things faster.” Scientists and other researchers can take long texts and convert them into podcast format that both summarizes and, well, dramatizes the narrative. In this way researchers can avail themselves of a larger body of research and digest that research as they would their favorite podcasts. Does NotebookLM take certain AI liberties? Yes, it does. It focuses on what it feels is important and may gloss over “less interesting” points. In addition, there is no way to add such things as reference lists or graphs. Those types of additions would have to be added in some form of post-production process.
So, please take a listen to the podcast version of Prometheus on the Quad. Suffice it to say that we are dipping our toes into the exploding world of AI-generated content. I think the big caveat here is if the podcast version piques your interest, by all means read the original article to get the full impact. Google calls the podcasts that NotebookLM creates “audio overviews.” Geez, I remember as a young student hoping that there was a CliffsNotes available for the long books we were assigned. Same idea; new technology.
Please Note: Because the podcast version of Prometheus is about 26 minutes long, it takes about 15 to 20 seconds to load into your web browser. Be patient, it will be worth it!
Image from Pixabay.com
Notes:
[1] – You can find a link to Prometheus on the Quad in this op-ed by Dr. Corvo entitled Reclaiming the Flame.
