I’m blown away by NotebookLM. It seems there’s nothing too hard to learn when you can get a podcast-style overview and then ask any question in a

I Taught My 8yo Subduction Zones With NotebookLM

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2024-09-29 17:00:04

I’m blown away by NotebookLM. It seems there’s nothing too hard to learn when you can get a podcast-style overview and then ask any question in an interactive learning session. So let’s think big; why can’t my 8 year old child learn about cutting edge PhD research? How far can we get?

First, I needed a topic, so I went to phys.org. I’ve spent a lot of time browsing articles there in the past. A lot of it is open access, so the full article is available, and it’s got a huge variety of topics.

I clicked on an article at random, “Mesozoic intraoceanic subduction shaped the lower mantle beneath the East Pacific Rise”. That title sounds very complicated, I have no idea what it means but it seems like geology. I wonder how much my daughter will understand 🤔. Only one way to find out…

In NotebookLM, I created a new notebook and added the link to the article as a source. Immediately there is a text sumamry available. It’s still fairly terse, even for me, so I generated an “audio summary”. This is the “podcast” that’s been all the rage across the internet. It creates a podcast, where the two hosts banter back and forth to break down the concepts.