If AI Can Make A Doofus Like Me Sound Interesting, What Can't It Do?!

Recent advances in AI continue to both surprise and frighten me. There's so much of it happening all at once and so quickly that this progress itself is equally surprising and terrifying.

But there's no doubt that this technology is here to stay, and we may as well take advantage of it while it's still mostly free to tinker with!

So far, most of my exploration of AI has been limited to utilitarian tools like image recognition, document scanning and summarizing, as well as some content generation for helping me outline things like blog posts and articles. Plus, of course, using Copilot to completely revolutionize my development workflow! This is all great and will certainly become a permanent part of many people's toolkits in the future...

However, this week I stumbled on a fascinating new AI tool added to Google's NotebookLM product called Audio Overview. This is not just some rinky-dink "summarize text to speech" tool to condense a document or topic. This feature generates a full-fledged conversational podcast-style discussion between two, yes TWO different AI personas! They speak to each other in depth about the supplied source, complete with witty banter and lame humor!

I was skeptical about how exactly this worked, and what kind of result you could really get from this, so I decided to throw the most mundane thing I could think of at it: me.

I uploaded a copy of my recent blog post My Journey to Piranha CMS where I described what motivated me to relaunch my website with this platform. In only a few moments, NotebookLM constructed and published a 9 minute conversation that essentially had me questioning my own identity.

Check it out (be sure to read the original post for context)!

It made me sound WAY more interesting than I actually am, not to mention the dry, technical journey that literally nobody but me cares about. They somehow made the article sound like it was this existential journey against tech and time, ultimately yielding this incredible victory that anyone and everyone could relate to. They basically told my story better than I think I ever could have, and somehow even made it sound interesting!

And funnily enough, I mean, I think it's almost kinda true; at least, that's the essence of what was going through my mind when I wrote it. I don't think I captured it quite the way they did (they being artificial beings that do not actually exist!), but it was incredible to hear my written words transformed into a dynamic, engaging conversation.

It's like someone took my thoughts and ran it through a "make it interesting" filter and spat out a podcast story that even I'd listen to.

AI has always been impressive and surprising, but this is the most I have ever felt like this stuff is basically almost MAGIC. Just yesterday we were making chatbots that can tell us the weather and really dumb jokes, and now we have AI creating entire podcasts that sound more human and interesting than many real shows out there, certainly better than anything I could have done myself!

While I don't think you should expect to suddenly hear about a new podcast featuring two suspiciously articulate AI hosts discussing some dot-net-schmoe from Texas, I do think if it can make a topic as boring as me sound even remotely interesting, imagine what it could do with stuff that actually matters!

If nothing else, this discovery reminds me both just how far we've come, and how much I am missing by not paying closer attention to the world of AI and tech in general! Yet another world of possibilities is revealed that I never knew existed, and here's to the future of it all: may it continue to surprise, delight, and yes, even scare us a little, but may we always find new ways to use and enjoy it.

Now if you'll excuse me I have a date with NotebookLM and the rest of my blog archive.

Who knows? I might just discover that I really am cool after all!

As always, I hope this was helpful and thanks for reading (and listening)!