While many industries have welcomed the advancement of artificial intelligence, the creator economy has, by large, been more resistant.
Creators across numerous industries, including video games, movies, and TV, have even gone on strikes over fears that their labor might be replaced by generative AI.
We’ve already seen AI artists and AI influencers. But with its new experimental AI tool, NotebookLM threatens to take over one of the most lucrative markets in the creator economy: podcasts.
How is AI taking over podcasts?
In an article for the Washington Post, tech columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler demonstrated how to use NotebookLM. The tool can summarize documents and turn them into a conversational podcast, complete with AI-generated voices.
Specifically, Fowler fed the machine with Facebook’s 99-page privacy policy. This resulted in a seven-and-a-half-minute podcast on Meta’s data practices.
At one point, one of the fake AI voices described a real-life, relatable scenario where it was shopping for hiking boots. Shortly after, the AI host said Facebook started showing them hiking boots ads.
With the conversational style of these bots, one question remains — can it truly replace actual podcasters? The answer is “maybe,” albeit with some risk of misinformation. NotebookLM’s website warns that the technology may “sometimes give inaccurate responses.”
But Steven Johnson, the editorial director of Google Labs, told the Post that the new tool “opens the possibility for podcasts in places the market would never support a podcast.”
“You might turn your homework into a podcast so you can listen to it at the gym,” Johnson said. “Or take city council meetings and share them with the public as a podcast where there would never be the budget or recording studio to do that.”
