The Vergecast

The chatbot becomes the teacher

For the first episode in our new miniseries about the impact of AI in our everyday lives, we chat with Steven Johnson, a longtime author who has spent the last couple of years at Google working on an AI research and note-taking tool called NotebookLM. We talk about whether AI can really help us learn better, how Google has tried to make NotebookLM more accurate and helpful, and whether AI-generated podcasts are the future of learning. 
Further reading:

NotebookLM

Steven Johnson’s website / newsletter

From Steven Johnson: Listening To The Algorithm


Google teases Project Tailwind — a prototype AI notebook that learns from your documents

Google’s AI-powered note-taking app is the messy beginning of something great

Google is using AI to make fake podcasts from your notes



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The Vergecast is the flagship podcast from The Verge about small gadgets, Big Tech, and everything in between. Every Friday, hosts Nilay Patel, David Pierce, and Alex Cranz hang out and make sense of the week’s most important technology news. And every Tuesday, David leads a selection of The Verge’s expert staffers in an exploration of how gadgets and software affect our lives – and which ones you should bring into yours.