Written by Greetings all. There’s been a lot of discussion about artificial intelligence of late. Here is something that was shared in a recent faculty technology section. Notebook LM from Google actually allows users to upload an article or some such and create a PODCAST using AI.
If you like to reinforce your learning with audio files, this just might be super useful!
Here is my article “Soft Skills are Heart Skills” as a podcast
Here is the article PDF designed for our class.
So here’s something you might want to try — turn one of your blog posts into a podcast!
Weird Image: ChatGPT AI Created!
Prompt: Create an image that illustrates a blog post about artificial intelligence, turning an article into a podcast from the library and information science field
@michael I am a bit taken aback by how “authentic” it sounds, especially with the back and forth. Wow!
@lisahach it made my brain explode. We are adding a podcast to each info 200 module based on one of the really important articles from that module and telling the students how we do it with notebook LM. I think that’s good on so many levels like teaching them what I can do for good and giving them an option to listen to a breakdown of an article that might be a bit easier to understand.
So I did my Assignment X…. bananas. In Someways briliant and in otherways appalling – pleaase comment on the post any/all thoughts
https://287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu/bookmarkthissite/2025/09/20/bonus-episode-assignment-x-google-notebooklm-remix/
@grafzepp I have both open in tabs… one to read and one to listen too.
Wow, thank you @michael for sharing this resource with us. I input my Assignment X and it spit out a nearly 13 minute podcast that sounds incredibly real, and it extrapolated on my ideas in a conversational way that makes sense. If anyone wants to check it out, I’ve created a separate post here: https://287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu/catalinking/2025/09/21/assignment-x-meets-ai/
I shared this with a colleague who is pursuing a completely different degree that requires memorization, because I found the flashcards and quiz tool to be incredibly accurate and cool as well.
@catalinking I am absolutely thrilled you gave this a try!
It is absolutely wild to me that the model output includes breathing sounds. I’ve edited podcast audio a little, and I learned to take out umms and uhhs but leave in the speaker taking a breath to make it feel more natural.
So strange that the audio pretends to be human. One speaker on combatting burnout says they feel more relaxed just thinking about forest bathing. This feels a bit disingenuous. The output does not think or feel!
Don’t get me wrong, I try to walk a line between AI skepticism and boosterism. If this helps people learn via another mode, that’s great. The technology having made the leap over the uncanny valley though is itself a bit… uncanny.
@robw I am still flummoxed by a lot of this… good point about the machine saying “I feel more relaxed…”