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šŸ˜ŗ NotebookLM, next big thing?

PLUS: Are we headed for a "subprime AI" crisis?

Welcome, humans.

One of our favorite use-cases for Runwayā€™s video-to-video is taking video game footage, and making it look like real life. Like this video that re-imagines Mario 64 IRL:

Another cool Mario IRL generation here.

As the Reddit comments have pointed out, this tech could enable future video games that let you pick what style of graphics you want to play the game in, like ā€œskinsā€ over the base-level game.

Totally random non sequitur: if you want to watch Will Smith eat Spaghetti while playing Mario Kart, that also exists.

Hereā€™s what you need to know about AI today:

  • We explain how to use NotebookLM, the internetā€™s fave new AI tool.

  • Amazon launched AI tools for sellers' ads and listings.

  • Apple expanded AI iOS beta with enhanced Siri.

  • U.N. board made 7 AI risk recommendations.

Hereā€™s what you need to know about the internetā€™s new favorite AI tool, NotebookLM.

Listen to this 2 min example and tell me you arenā€™t impressed.

Ever clicked a link, saw a wall of text, and wished it was a podcast? A good podcast, that simplifies complex topics? That's NotebookLM (according to X).

Everyoneā€™s been raving about it, so we thought weā€™d put it to the testā€”and teach you how to use it, too.

NotebookLM is like Google's answer to Claude Projects (organize your chats in one place w/ stored knowledge), but with an audio overview. The wildest part is itā€™s completely free, has a massive context window (~1M tokens), and cites sources with fewer hallucinations.

For example, hereā€™s an easy way to get smarter about AI:

  1. Use this tool that collects all the AI research papers shared on Hacker News.

  2. Pick an interesting paper (we chose this Qwen2.5-Coder report).

  3. On NotebookLM, click ā€œCreateā€ to make new notebook.

  4. Select ā€œ*Notebook guideā€ (bottom right corner), click "Upload sources", choose ā€œWebsiteā€ from the pop-up window, and paste the link.

Once your sources are uploaded, you can chat with your notes and ask whatever questions you want. The one youā€™ll want to try first is the "Audio Overview" feature.

Once you upload your sources, this is what youā€™ll see.

After you click ā€œGenerateā€, it can take some time, so feel free to tab out and do other stuff while you wait.

Research papers are just the start. People are using NotebookLM to podcastify their code repos, summarize Reddit threads, make study guides for math problems, and create whacky stuff, like this meta convo of NotebookLM talking about NotebookLM.

Thatā€™s not to say every Audio overview will be usefulā€¦the AI decides on its own what it wants to highlight, and sometimes that leads to weird Inception referencesā€¦ so youā€™ll definitely still need to chat with your docs like any other language model.

Pro tip: Use NotebookLM to test your marketing copy. Feed it your landing page or other marketing materials, and see how the audio overview highlights your unique selling points, mirroring how a customer might perceive you.

If the summary is way off, you might need to revise your pageā€”but before you change everything, generate multiple summaries to be sure!

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Around the Horn.

  • OpenAIā€™s latest funding round is reportedly oversubscribed, with the minimum buy in for an entity to join the round has been reported to be $250M (and ā€œbillionsā€ in demand trying to get in).

  • Amazon launched new AI tools for sellers to create video ads, generate product listings in bulk, and introduced Amelia, an assistant for account management and data retrieval.

  • Apple expanded access to beta testing for its new AI iOS update, which introduced advanced Siri capabilities and intelligent features to compatible iPhones.

  • A U.N. advisory board made seven recommendations to address AI risk, including establishing an international scientific panel, an exchange of standards, a global data framework, and a global AI fund. (full report here).

Treats To Try.

  1. *If youā€™re new to AI or need the confidence to launch your product, you need Vellumā€™s free GenAI webinar. Learn best practices from AI experts at major companies like Redfin. Seats are limitedā€”grab yours now!

  2. GitHub Copilot Chat and Models playground now supports o1-preview and o1-mini (more info here).

  3. Mercor streamlines the job application process by sending your profile to thousands of companies after a single interview (raised $30M).

  4. AIPRM provides a library of expert-crafted prompts to enhance your productivity with ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI models.

  5. Surfsite organizes data from your work apps, letting you quickly find information, plan product releases, and track KPIs all in one place.

  6. StoryChief provides weekly content audits to help you improve your SEO performance, generate new content ideas, and streamline content planning.

  7. Crowdwave turns social media posts into voicemails, with an old-school 90s UI (theyā€™re seriously hilarious).  

*This is sponsored content. Advertise in The Neuron here.

Intelligent Insights

Double insight!! Original quote from Jensen here.

  • Good, short read on why AI could lead to a new, less visual interface than screens (direct link doesnā€™t work, so go to the thread and click link there).

  • Someone visualized the top AI models and how their rankings on the leaderboards have risen and fallen over timeā€¦ pretty cool to watch the progress!

  • Hereā€™s a critical review of o1, claiming its clunky UX and performance issues point to a flaw in OpenAIā€™s product direction.

  • Fantastic read on the perils and opportunities of AI regulation from the unrivaled genius of Stephen Frey.

  • Hereā€™s a glossary of 46 AI terms you should probably know.

  • Great deep dive on why we might be in the middle of a subprime AI crisis that could lead to a cascade of price increases, abandoned projects, and widespread financial losses when the true costs become apparent.

A Cat's Commentary.

Our ā€œend gameā€ is to give you the facts as we see ā€˜em!

Thatā€™s all for today, for more AI treats, check out our website.

The best way to support us is by checking out our sponsorsā€”todayā€™s are HubSpot and Vellum.

See you cool cats on Twitter: @nonmayorpete & @noahedelman02

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