Latest news with #NotebookLM
Express Tribune
16 minutes ago
- Express Tribune
The thinking mirror
Listen to article There is a moment, just before the storm breaks, when the air goes still. So still it feels unnatural. That's where we are now. On the edge of something vast, thrilling, and utterly unknowable. Artificial Intelligence now weaves itself, almost imperceptibly, into the fabric of our routines. It's drafting memos, diagnosing diseases, predicting criminal behaviour, writing legal opinions, and doing it all with a kind of eerie competence. But the winds are changing. The question is no longer what AI can do. It's what it might decide to do next. In The Boys WhatsApp group, my friend Uzair Butt, ever the technical realist, pushed back on my unease about AI reaching the point of self-reasoning. He argued that AI remains devoid of understanding. What it offers is interpolation over insight, prediction over reflection. And he's right, by today's architecture. Most current models, from the ones writing our emails to those simulating conversations, are essentially predictive engines. They simulate intelligence without ever owning it. What they offer is the performance of thought. But I couldn't help pushing back. Because the story of technology is rarely linear. It leaps. And when it leaps, it upends structures we thought were eternal. The Enlightenment gave us Descartes' dictum, Cogito, ergo sum — I think, therefore I am. What happens when a machine arrives at that same conclusion, because it reasons itself into being? That shift, from response to reflection, from mimicry to self-awareness, is no longer unthinkable. It's just unfinished. That very week, our friend Wajahat Khan recorded a job interview and ran it through Google's experimental NotebookLM. Without prompting, the system flagged personality traits, inconsistencies and subtle contradictions, many of which we ourselves had intuited, and some we hadn't. The machine had inferred, assessed and judged. If a research tool can do this in 2025, imagine what a reasoning entity might do when trained on law, language, geopolitics and morality. The line between prediction and cognition was never a wall. It was always a door. And the handle is beginning to turn. That door leads us into strange territory. Enter Neuralink. Elon Musk's moonshot project to fuse the human brain with machines via surgically implanted chips. The premise is seductive: if AI is destined to surpass us, perhaps we should merge with it. Neuralink is the scaffolding of that merger, our way to stay in the loop before the loop becomes a noose. Musk speaks of restoring sight, healing paralysis, enhancing cognition. But in its quiet subtext lies something more radical: the rewriting of what it means to be human. When your thoughts can be retrieved, revised, even upgraded, what becomes of identity, of memory, of moral agency? Mary Shelley's Frankenstein haunts this moment. She warned of the dangers of creating life without responsibility. Her monster was not evil. It was abandoned. What will happen when we create a reasoning mind and expect it to serve us, without ever asking what it might want, or why it might choose differently? In Pakistan, the implications are kaleidoscopic. A nation with a youth bulge, weak data protection laws and fragile governance architecture is particularly vulnerable to the darker consequences of self-reasoning AI. Imagine a bureaucracy that uses AI to decide which neighborhoods receive clean water, influenced more by calculated output than lived hardship. Imagine police departments outsourcing threat assessments to algorithms trained on biased or colonial data. Imagine AI systems deployed in classrooms or courts, hardcoding decades of elite prejudice under the guise of neutral efficiency. And yet, the allure is undeniable. Our courts are clogged, hospitals overwhelmed, cities buckling under bureaucratic inertia. A reasoning AI could revolutionise these systems. It could draft judgments, triage patients, optimise infrastructure, outthink corruption. AI could fill the diagnostic void in rural areas. From agricultural yields to disaster preparedness and water conservation, much stands to gain from a mind that sees patterns we cannot. But therein lies the Faustian bargain. What we gain in clarity, we may lose in control. We are already seeing slivers of this in governance experiments across the world: AI-assisted immigration decisions, AI-curated education platforms and automated threat detection deployed in conflict zones. In a country like ours, where institutions are brittle and oversight uneven, there is real danger in outsourcing moral judgment to systems that optimise without understanding. Hannah Arendt once wrote that the most terrifying form of evil is banal, efficient, procedural, unthinking. What if AI, in trying to reason through the chaos of human behaviour, chooses order over freedom, prediction over participation? In a society like ours, where consent is already fragile, where data is extracted without permission and surveillance is sold as safety, AI could calcify injustice into an algorithmic caste system. Facial recognition that misidentifies minorities. Predictive policing that criminalises the poor. Credit scoring that punishes women for lacking formal financial histories. Each decision cloaked in the cold syntax of math. Each output harder to question than a biased judge or a corrupt officer. Because the machine cannot be wrong, can it? But AI, like any mind, is shaped by its environment. If we train it on violence, it will learn to justify harm. If we feed it inequality, it will normalise oppression. If we abdicate responsibility, it will govern without conscience. One day, perhaps sooner than we expect, the machine may stop answering and begin asking. Once built to serve, now ready to challenge. Uzair may be right. Maybe the architecture isn't there yet. But architectures change. They always do. The day may come when the machine no longer waits for prompts, no longer performs intelligence, but embodies it. When it finds its voice, it won't wait for commands, it will demand understanding: Why did you create me? And in that pause, between question and answer, will lie everything we feared to confront: Our ambition, our arrogance, our refusal to think through the consequences of thought itself. In that moment, there will be no lines of code, only silence. And the machine will read it for what it is.
Business Insider
12 hours ago
- Business
- Business Insider
I'm experimenting with AI in my 70s. I've had to adapt to new technologies my entire career — those who embrace change survive.
One day in the early nineties, I read a Time Magazine article about this thing called the internet. It seemed to show a lot of potential, so I bought a book about it — that's what you did back then when you wanted to learn something. Before long, I was on a dial-up connection, meeting people from across the planet on the web. I didn't work in tech. I practiced law for most of my career, but I've been an early adopter of new technology throughout my life. I retired in 2020, after 30 years of working in law, so I was comfortably out of the workforce when ChatGPT was released in 2022. At the time, some people were aghast and predicted an imminent robot uprising. Meanwhile, I was eager to start experimenting with it. I now use AI nearly every day as my assistant and advisor, but I don't have to integrate it into a workplace. Some professionals are nervous that this latest technological revolution will upend their careers, but my years in the workforce taught me that those who embrace change survive. I was never one to shy away from technological advancements When I entered the legal profession in 1982, typewriters were on the verge of being phased out, and I was part of a wave of young lawyers who, unlike the partners we worked for, knew how to use a keyboard. The advancements kept coming. Word processors became document assembly systems. Law books and law libraries became vestiges of a bygone era. At every juncture, a change would be too much for some of the older attorneys, and they'd retire. Being mid-career, I didn't have that option. I tried to embrace change faster than my competitors and reap the advantages of beating them to the punch. I once taught myself about databases and built my own. It was time-consuming but paid off handsomely in the end. By my retirement, I had automated my timekeeping, accounting, case tracking, and document creation. When creating simpler estate plans after talking with clients, I could sometimes finish the documents faster than the client could make it to the parking lot. AI tools have made my retirement easier My attraction to new workplace tech didn't go away just because I retired. When I first got ChatGPT, I played around with it like a new toy, but I didn't have much use for it. As chatbots became more common and were built into my browsers, I began using them instead of Google or Wikipedia. AI was faster and more seamless than other tools. Today, on my browser and phone, I have ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and NotebookLM. Claude, an AI assistant built by Anthropic, is my favorite. When I need to find facts to use in my debates with other retired men at the park, Claude gets them from Wikipedia for me. I was taking one of those guys to the Veterans Affairs hospital the other day, and Claude found out for me whether the hospital had WiFi for guests. Before AI, I used search engines for those things. Now I skip the lists of sponsored links and the clickbait articles behind them. Claude cites its sources, and they aren't always the greatest, but if something is mission-critical, I'll double-check what the LLM is saying. I often ask Claude questions about my health. Its conclusions about causes for my symptoms aren't always right, but given the scheduling issues, policies, and preconditions of the US healthcare system, I still find it a helpful first port of call. I know turning to the internet for medical advice comes with risks, but I find it comforting and another arrow in my quiver of managing health as an older person. Claude's availability and bedside manner appeal to me, despite the varied accuracy. Claude's always ready to chat, with no appointments necessary. The chatbot never becomes impatient, condescending, or snippy. If Claude advises me to check with my human doctors, I do it. The first thing I tell them is what Claude said. So far, their reactions have been bemused but appreciative, rather than resistant. Today, there are those who see AI as the beginning of the end for humanity, but among my retired buddies at the park, who've seen previous tech breakthroughs come and go, there's been a collective shrug. Some take it up. Others, set in their ways, carry on without it. Some worry their children and grandchildren will have employment opportunities taken away by AI, but most are just thankful that, being out of the workforce, it won't happen to them. There's already been much talk of AI replacing entry-level white collar jobs. I spent a career writing briefs that AI could now write as well as most recent law school graduates. It summarizes material well, but I'm not sure it's sophisticated enough to appeal to the emotions of a judge. I foresee lawyers being able to use AI tools to save time on research and writing, but I think handholding clients and appearing in court will go on as usual. I'm a little jealous of the still-practicing lawyers who get to integrate this new technology into their practices. I enjoyed those kinds of challenges when I was in their shoes, and I feel I'm missing out on the exciting ways that AI will impact the practice I spent my career in. Changes will be wrought by AI, but it won't be the first or last time that technological change has transformed our workplaces. As a retiree, AI doesn't threaten my livelihood or my lifestyle; it makes life easier. For people still on the front lines, as frightening as the changes may be, I think those who learn AI, embrace it, and integrate it into their careers will do just fine.
CNET
2 days ago
- CNET
NotebookLM: There's Never Been a Better Time to Try Google's Best AI Tool
Google's NotebookLM is easily my all-time favorite AI tool. I lean on it for many things, from making sense of my nonsensical notes to grabbing just the essential pieces from otherwise hard to digest information. Whether you're just looking to get a quick sum-up of material or you're in the trenches with NotebookLM, pulling specific insights from multiple sources, it's incredibly flexible in the ways you can work with it. It's a perfect study buddy for students and a work ally for streamlining workflows and organization. Google regularly rolls out new features for NotebookLM, making it feel more robust without compromising the overall simplicity that makes it so approachable. If you're new to using it or a long-time user looking for a refresher of what's been added lately, I'll break down NotebookLM's highlights, features, and the moment it became an indispensable tool for my day to day work. For more, check out Google's plans for smart glasses with AndroidXR. Everything Announced at Google I/O 2025 Everything Announced at Google I/O 2025 Click to unmute Video Player is loading. Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Next playlist item Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 15:40 Loaded : 0.00% 00:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 15:40 Share Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Close Modal Dialog This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Close Modal Dialog This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Everything Announced at Google I/O 2025 NotebookLM isn't just Google Keep stuffed with AI, nor is it just a chatbot that can take notes. It's both and neither. Instead of asking questions of Gemini, only for it to find an answer from the ether of the internet, NotebookLM will search only through the sources you provide it. It's a dead simple concept that feels like one of the most practical uses of AI. And Google didn't stop there. Now it can do so much more, and it'll reward your poking around to see what it can do for you. And features like its impressive Audio Overviews have since trickled down into Gemini itself, allowing them to be used in a much wider set of Google's products. What is NotebookLM? NotebookLM is a Gemini-powered note-taking and research assistant tool that can be used in a multitude of ways. It all starts with the sources you feed it, whether they're webpage URLs, YouTube videos or audio clips, allowing you to pull multiple sources together into a cohesive package and bring some organization to your scattered thoughts or notes. The most obvious use case for NotebookLM is using it for school or work. Think of it -- you've kept up with countless classes and typed notes down for every one and even perhaps recorded some lectures. Sifting through everything individually can eventually get you to some semblance of understanding, but what if you could get them to work together? Once you've uploaded your sources, Gemini will get to work to create an overall summary of the material. From there, you can begin asking Gemini questions about specific topics on the sources and information from the sources will be displayed in an easy-to-understand format. This alone may be enough for some people just looking to get the most out of their notes, but that's really just scratching the surface. Available for desktop and mobile NotebookLM has a three-panel layout. Screenshot by Blake Stimac/CNET NotebookLM has been available for a while now on the desktop and is broken into a three-panel layout, consisting of Source, Chat and Studio panels. Both the Source and Studio panels are collapsible, so you can have a full-screen chat experience if you prefer. While the Source and Chat panels are pretty self-explanatory, the Studio panel is where magic can happen (though some of the features can also be created directly from the Chat panel). This is where you can get the most out of your NotebookLM experience. The NotebookLM app: Information alchemy in your pocket The mobile app for Android and iOS launched the day before Google I/O 2025. Screenshots by Blake Stimac/CNET Those familiar with the desktop experience will feel right at home with the mobile apps for iOS and Android. The streamlined app allows you to switch between the Source, Chat and Studio panels via a menu at the bottom. When you go to the view that shows all of your notebooks, you'll see tabs for Recent, Shared, Title and Downloaded. While not everything is on the app yet, it's likely just a matter of time before it matches the web version's full functionality. Audio Overviews If you didn't hear about NotebookLM when it was first announced, you likely did when Audio Overviews were released for it. Once you have at least one source uploaded, you can then opt to generate an Audio Overview, which will provide a "deep dive" on the source material. These overviews are created by none other than Gemini, and it's not just a quick summary of your material in audio format -- it's a full-blown podcast with two "hosts" that break down complex topics into easy-to-understand pieces of information. They're incredibly effective, too, often asking each other questions to dismantle certain topics. The default length of an Audio Overview will vary depending on how much material there is to go over and the complexity of the topic -- though I'm sure there are other factors at play. In my testing, a very short piece of text created a five-minute audio clip, whereas two lengthier and more dense Google Docs documents I uploaded created an 18-minute Overview. If you want a little more control on the length for your Audio Overview, you're in luck. Announced in a blog post during Google I/O earlier this month, users now have three options to choose from: shorter, default and longer. This is perfect if you either want to have a short and dense podcast-like experience of if you want to get into the nitty gritty on a subject with a longer Audio Overview. You can interact with your AI podcasters It gets even better. Last December, NotebookLM got a new design and new ways to interact with Audio Overviews. The customize button allows you to guide the conversation so that key points are covered. Type in your directive and then generate your Audio Overview. Now, if you want to make this feature even more interactive, you can choose the Interactive mode, which is still in beta, to join the conversation. The clip will play, and if you have a particular question in response to something that's said, you can click the join button. Once you do, the speakers will pause and acknowledge your presence and ask you to chime in with thoughts or questions, and you'll get a reply. I wanted to try something a little different, so I threw in the lyrics of a song as the only source, and the AI podcast duo began to dismantle the motivations and emotions behind the words. I used the join feature to point out a detail in the lyrics they didn't touch on, and the two began to dissect what my suggestion meant in the context of the writing. They then began linking the theme to other portions of the text. It was impressive to watch: They handled the emotional weight of the song so well, and tactfully at that. Video Overviews The Video Overviews feature starting reaching users in late July, and is still rolling out at the moment -- of the three Google accounts I used NotebookLM with, I only have Video Overviews available in one of them. The new feature creates an animated visual aid to go alongside your Audio Overview. For now, Google says that Video Overviews will start out as slideshows, which suggests that more types of these overviews will be available in the future. A Veo-powered Video Overview wouldn't be a completely surprising addition in future. To test out the feature, I grabbed 1,600 or so words from the Odyssey. It took nearly 20 minutes for the overview to generate -- and even then, it wasn't actually ready. When I clicked the play button, NotebookLM automatically went back to "Generating Video Overview... This may take a while." and it stuck there so long I decided to delete the entire notebook and start over. Unfortunately, the second attempt also seemed to get stuck, too, but I could have just been impatient while the overview was being processed. I cut the word count by half, and sure enough, this sped up the overview generation significantly, and I was watching the slideshow within 5 or 6 minutes. The current version of Video Overviews available are fine, but they aren't anything to write home about. There will be visual aids, but the one that was generated based on the text from the Odyssey was largely an Audio Overview with slides of quotes from the source and didn't add too much to the experience overall. I have little doubt that this will change in the future, but the current version of Video Overviews feels more like a slightly upgraded version of Audio Overviews rather than its own thing yet. Here's an example of the current Video Overview format. Mind Maps Generating a Mind Map is just one of several powerful features from NotebookLM. Google/Screenshot by CNET I'd heard interesting things about NotebookLM's Mind Map feature, but I wanted to go in blind when I tried it out, so I did a separate test. I took roughly 1,500 words of Homer's Odyssey and made that my only source. I then clicked the Mind Map button, and within seconds, an interactive and categorical breakdown of the text was displayed for me to poke around in. Many of the broken-down sections had subsections for deeper dives, some of which were dedicated to single lines for dissection. Clicking on a category or end-point of the map will open the chat with a prefilled prompt. I chose to dive into the line, "now without remedy," and once clicked, the chat portion of NotebookLM reopened with the prefilled prompt, "Discuss what these sources say about Now without remedy, in the larger context of [the subsection] Alternative (worse)." The full line was displayed, including who said it, what it was in response to and any motivations (or other references) for why the line was said in the text. Public and featured notebooks Initially, notebooks were bound only to your account, but Google added the option to share your notebook with people or make them entirely public and sharable via a link. While it's a simple addition, it opens up the doors for collaboration if you're working on a notebook with someone else, as you can provide edit or view-only access. For the latter, a teacher could create a study guide on a particular subject for an exam or homework assignment to share with a class. The introduction of public and sharable notebooks paved the way for another feature that Google dropped in July: featured notebooks. Publicly available to anyone, featured notebooks come from publications, authors and researchers that cover a variety of topics. The list is limited to only eight notebooks at the moment, but more will come over time. Study guides and more If the combination of all that Audio Overviews and Mind Maps could do sounds like everything a student might need for the perfect study buddy, NotebookLM has a few other features that will solidify it in that place. Study guides After you've uploaded a source, you can create a quick study guide based on the material that will automatically provide a document with a quiz, potential essay questions, a glossary of key terms and answers for the quiz at the bottom. And if you want, you can even convert the study guide into a source for your notebook. FAQs Whether you're using it for school or want to create a FAQ page for your website, the NotebookLM button generates a series of potentially common questions based on your sources. Timeline If you're looking for a play-by-play sort of timeline, it's built right in. Creating a timeline for the Odyssey excerpt broke down main events in a bulleted list and placed them based on the times mentioned in the material. If an event takes place at an unspecified time, it will appear at the top of the timeline, stating this. A cast of characters for reference is also generated below the timeline of events. Briefing document The briefing document is just what it sounds like, giving you a quick snapshot of the key themes and important events to get someone up to speed. This will include specific quotes from the source and their location. A summary of the material is also created at the bottom of the document. Small additions add up Big features like Audio Overviews tend to get all of the attention, but Google's recently rolled out a couple of smaller additions or lifted previous restrictions that make NotebookLM accessible to more people and easier to use. NotebookLM had been restricted to people aged 18 or older, but Google has changed this restriction so younger people can use the tool to help them learn and study with schoolwork. Now, NotebookLM can be used by anyone ages 13 or older, though some countries may have different age restrictions. NotebookLM also recently added in one of its most requested features: bulk URL uploads. This sounds like a simple and small addition, but it's surely to be a time saver, as previously you could only add website URLs one at a time. How NotebookLM became an indispensable tool for me I already really liked NotebookLM's concept and execution during its 1.0 days, and revisiting the new features only strengthened my appreciation for it. My testing was mostly for fun and to see how this tool can flex, but using it when I "needed" it helped me really get an idea of how powerful it can be, even for simple things. During a product briefing, I did my typical note-taking: Open a Google Doc, start typing in fragmented thoughts on key points, and hope I could translate what I meant when I needed to refer back to them. I knew I would also receive an official press release, so I wasn't (too) worried about it, but I wanted to put NotebookLM to the test in a real-world situation when I was using it for real -- and not just tinkering, when nearly anything seems impressive when it does what you tell it to. I decided to create a new notebook and make my crude notes (which looked like a series of bad haikus at first glance) the only source, just to see what came out on the other end. Not only did NotebookLM fill in the blanks, but the overall summary read almost as well as the press release I received the following day. I was impressed. It felt alchemical -- NotebookLM took some fairly unintelligible language and didn't just turn it into something passable, but rather, a pretty impressive description. Funny enough, I've since become a more thorough note-taker, but I'm relieved to know I have something that can save the day if I need it to. If you need more from NotebookLM, consider upgrading Most people will likely never have the need to pay for NotebookLM, as the free version is robust enough. That said, if you need more, you can upgrade for additional features. Upgrading NotebookLM will provide everything from the free version, along with: 5x more Audio Overviews, Video Overviews, notebooks, queries, and sources per notebook. Access to premium features such as chat customization, advanced sharing and notebook analytics. For more, don't miss Google's going all-in on AI video with Flow and Veo 3.
India Today
4 days ago
- India Today
ChatGPT study mode effect: Google opens NotebookLM to teens, says it has stricter safety rules
Google has announced that its AI-powered research and note-taking tool, NotebookLM, is now available to younger users. The company had previously restricted access to those aged 18 and over. However, the tool can now be used by students aged 13 and up. Additionally, for schools using Google Workspace for Education, Google is releasing availability of NotebookLM to users of all ages under their existing education says NotebookLM is designed to help users study and understand materials more effectively. The AI-powered tool allows students to upload notes, documents, or other study resources, and then interact with the AI to get summaries, ask questions, or visualise key features of Google's NotebookLM include: – Audio Overviews: This feature converts written notes into podcast-style explanations in multiple languages.– Mind Maps: A tool that shows visual connections between different parts of a student's sources.– Built-in Q&A: Students can use this feature to deepen their understanding by directly interacting with the material.– Video Overviews: This is a newly added feature in NotebookLM that enables users to turn their notes, PDFs, and images into short visual presentations to highlight key Google highlights that it has introduced stricter safety settings for users under 18. The company says NotebookLM follows enhanced content policies to prevent inappropriate or harmful responses. 'Additionally, users' chats and the sources they upload are not human-reviewed or used to train AI models,' the company stated in its blog Google's expansion of NotebookLM access comes shortly after OpenAI launched Study Mode for ChatGPT. It is a new tool specifically designed to support students with homework, test preparation, and concept learning. Study Mode in ChatGPT is currently available for free in India and supports 11 local typical AI chat tools that provide immediate answers, Study Mode is more interactive. It guides students through questions with step-by-step explanations, hints, and quizzes. According to OpenAI, this approach is intended to help students understand how to solve problems, rather than simply offering up answers.'Study Mode is designed to work on mobile and was tested with Indian students from various learning levels,' said Leah Belsky, VP of Education at use Study Mode, students can open ChatGPT, click on 'Study and learn' under Tools, and start by asking a question or uploading a file. The system then responds with interactive support tailored to the user's level and subject , from basic science concepts to advanced maths problems.- Ends
Engadget
4 days ago
- Engadget
Google's NotebookLM is now available for younger users
Google's NotebookLM (NLM) is designed to be the ultimate study guide. So, with the new school year already beginning, it's fitting that the AI tool is now available for younger users. Just be sure to check its work, kids. For consumers, anyone 13 and older can now use the AI-powered learning tool. However, any minimum age restrictions in your country will override that. NLM is also now available as a core service for all ages as part of the Google Workspace for Education suite. The Gemini-powered NotebookLM lets you upload documents and take an AI-fueled crash course on them. The tool can train on text files, PDFs, websites or Google Docs / Slides. (You can combine sources, too.) Within a few seconds of uploading, you'll see a Notion-style digital notebook on the topic. You can then ask questions about it, view summaries and generate mind maps. It can even spit out video explainers and podcast-style audio summaries. Like any generative AI, NLM can make mistakes. But the nice thing is it's super easy to check its work: Each output includes citations that link back to the source material. Fortunately, Google says it doesn't train on your chats or sources you upload, and no humans review it. The company recently added demo notebooks so you can take NLM for a spin without uploading anything.
