I Handed My Book to AI, and It Gave Me a Podcast. Here’s How It Went.

Google's Notebook ML is able to create a lifelike podcast based on the information you provide. Naturally, I handed it our design manifesto, Your Cup of Tea. The AI didn’t just summarize the book, it crafted a thoughtful take on the themes and ideas from my writing. What emerged was an AI-generated podcast that felt surprisingly... human. 'Deep Dive' is the name given to all Notebook LM podcasts. Its hosts, disembodied voice one and two are recurring characters. The distinctly male voice starts right in laying groundwork for the episode, the other voice, a female follows up by highlighting the idea behind experience design; all the while both interject a bit of banter. The hosts cram a ton of topics into the ten minute audio clip. The AI provides commentary like, "It's about using design for good, creating experiences that acutally benefit people.","Right","...and to do that well you have to get how people actually experiecnce the world".

Listening was like eavesdropping on two educated people with some semblance of domain knowldege and a made-for-daytime-tv script. It's the kind of edu-tainemnt that touches on all of the basic tropes and fills airtime quite well; full of nonsquiter. And as natural conversation goes the hosts stray from the content of the book. I don't mention "curb-cuts", since they've been the poster-child of accssible design since the 70s, I left that to the history books. But, our beloved podcast presenters do touch on "zen-gardens", my analog for deep cultural exchange of experience, which they liken to the minimalistic design of a website. Fair enough.

My ear perked up, when I heard the line, "...everone wants to fit in and stand out." Those aren't my words, I wonder where they came from? Then they go on to talk about trust, and how it's a key component of design.

Wait, did I hear that correctly? In this section about Mary the herbalist, they start talking about the experience of getting a cup of COFFEE! People don't mix coffee and tea, any human would know that.

For now, I'm enjoying this interesting collaboration with technology and plotting what other ingedients to toss into the AI mixer.

Experience the AI-powered cliff notes for Your Cup of Tea with the Deep Dive fraudcast! The beauty of this format is you get a taste of the artificial but not the real thing.