(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



Google Now Has An AI Podcast Generator [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-09-25  

I’ll keep this short as I really don’t know what to think about this yet, other than I’m a bit creeped out. Google’s Gemini AI can now generate a rather convincing sounding podcast snippet generated from websites, uploaded documents, etc. It’s actually a newly added feature to their NotebookLM LLM note-taking app. Simply log in, create a new notebook, add the website(s), text document(s), or paste in text, and it will generate things like a written FAQ, Study Guide, or Briefing Document. Recently added is the “Audio Overview” feature which (from the helpful pop-up on the site):

Audio Overviews are lively “deep dive” discussions that summarize the key topics in your sources. This is an experimental feature and below are some notes to help you get started: Audio Overviews (including the voices) are AI-generated, so there might be inaccuracies and audio glitches.

Audio Overviews are not a comprehensive or objective view of a topic, but simply a reflection of your sources.

In short, it creates an audio file that sounds like a snippet taken from a podcast, with two “people” discussing the source topics. The conversation generated sounds rather realistic and to my simple ears, is pretty hard to distinguish from a conversation with actual people...at least when listened to casually.

As an example, I took today’s Abbreviated Pundit Roundup, ran it through the Audio Overview, and uploaded the audio to YouTube. You can listen to it here:

I honestly don’t know what to think about this yet, but with the rise of deepfakes and the idea that we can no longer automatically trust photographs, I can’t help but think how this technology can/will be used for ill purposes instead of good.

I just wanted to bring this to the Kos community attention and I’m interested in your thoughts.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/25/2272760/-Google-Now-Has-An-AI-Podcast-Generator?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/