Google’s new NotebookLM digests documents to create AI summaries, and provides an incredible new way to search a vast set of information. One little throwaway feature became a viral hit – “Audio Overview”, which creates a ‘podcast’ featuring two clever, chipper – and entirely synthetic – personas, engaging in a ‘deep dive’ on the content within NotebookLM. In the spirit of Halloween, we uploaded the scripts for the first four episodes of Series 2024 – and NotebookLM rose to the occasion. Is this the future of podcasting? And — HAVE I JUST BEEN PUT OUT OF A JOB?
AI Miniseries #1 – “When It Changed – How ChatGPT became the fastest growing app ever”
On 30 November 2022 startup OpenAI released ChatGPT, resetting expectations for artificial intelligence. Only one year later and billions now have access to ‘good enough’ AI, resetting our expectations for what computers can do – and leaving us wondering how we’ll adapt to this latest breakthrough.
On this first of a three-part miniseries, we explore how ChatGPT rose to become the fastest growing app in history, then found itself the weapon of choice in the longest running war in the technology industry – the feud between Microsoft and Google.
Episode 2.12 Strategic Amplification with Danah Boyd
Social media promised a voice for the marginalised and powerless. Danah Boyd shows us how our voices – amplified – redefined power.
Wonderful links from points mentioned in our conversation, courtesy of Danah:
- Madeleine Elish / Moral Crumple Zones:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2757236 - Becca Lewis / Alternative Influence Network:
https://datasociety.net/output/alternative-influence/ - Whitney Phillips / Oxygen of Amplification:
https://datasociety.net/output/oxygen-of-amplification/ - Francesca Tripodi / Searching for Alternative Facts:
https://datasociety.net/output/searching-for-alternative-facts/ - Danah on Strategic Amplification:
https://points.datasociety.net/media-manipulation-strategic-amplification-and-responsible-journalism-95f4d611f462 - Data voids:
https://datasociety.net/output/data-voids-where-missing-data-can-easily-be-exploited/ - Alex Rosenblat / Uberland:
https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520298576/uberland - Adam Kalai / bias in gender search:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.06520
Here is Danah’s incredible RE:PUBLICA talk from May 2018. Trust me, you will not regret taking the 50 minutes to watch this.
And Richard Metzger’s funny, poignant and farseeing opening of DISINFOCON, back in February 2000:
Episode 1.09: Three Days to (Alpha) GO
One of the the fun sides of doing a regular podcast is when a special event comes along, and taking the time to cover it in detail. In this case, it was an announcement from Google that their Alpha Go artificial intelligence program had taught itself how to be better than any human player – in 3 days.
Here’s how that looks:
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