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Is NotebookLM—Google's Research Assistant—the Ultimate Tool For Thought? - Ep.22 with Steven Johnson

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Jun 6, 2024

Guest

Steven Berlin Johnson

In this episode, bestselling author Steven Berlin Johnson, known for his influential works on innovation, dives into his role as editorial director for NotebookLM, Google Labs' research assistant. He discusses the amazing capabilities of NotebookLM, demonstrating how it can synthesize 200,000 words of NASA transcripts into clear narratives. Steven explores historical connections to the Apollo 1 fire while unpacking the tool's ability to recognize patterns in research. He emphasizes the exciting potential of AI in creative workflows, making it a must-listen for enthusiasts of technology and storytelling.

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Episode notes

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INSIGHT

Research Built Around Your Documents

NotebookLM is built as a new research surface centered on language models and documents you provide.
It aims to replace messy multi-tab workflows with a single integrated environment for research and writing.

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ANECDOTE

HyperCard Sparked A Lifelong Tool Obsession

Steven describes discovering HyperCard in 1987 and obsessively building a note-taking tool called Curriculum.
That early hypertext experience seeded his lifelong obsession with tools for organizing ideas.

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ADVICE

Dump First, Organize With Models Later

Don't spend time rigidly organizing everything; dump material in one place and rely on search and models.
Let emergent connections bubble up rather than pre-bucketing sources you might later link differently.

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NotebookLM: What is it and why build it?

00:57 • 3min

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Personal history with knowledge tools

03:43 • 4min

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Design philosophy: emergent organization over tagging

07:32 • 2min

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How NotebookLM works: sources, context, and scale

09:55 • 4min

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Inline citations and source tracing

13:28 • 5min

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Can NotebookLM infer a user's sensibility?

18:32 • 7min

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Detecting disagreement across saved sources

25:31 • 4min

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Using NotebookLM to explore a new project

29:23 • 4min

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Notebook Guide: FAQs, timelines, and cast of characters

33:15 • 2min

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Reader's guide to relevant interview sections

35:33 • 1min

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Pinning quotes and building a noteboard

36:40 • 1min

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Finding pivotal technical ideas behind narratives

38:08 • 3min

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Pure oxygen environments as the central idea

40:51 • 1min

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Connecting Apollo to the history of oxygen

42:14 • 1min

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Cross-notebook source retrieval for related ideas

Drafting visuals and opening script from curated notes

50:52 • 3min

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Reflections on human-computer collaboration

A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America

Steven Berlin Johnson

The Invention of Air delves into the life of Joseph Priestley, an 18th-century British polymath known for discovering oxygen. The book intertwines Priestley's story with historical events, including 18th-century London coffeehouse culture and his connections to American Founding Fathers like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. It explores how Priestley's discoveries contributed to the development of ecosystem science.

#1767

• Mentioned in 17 episodes

The Ghost Map

The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World

Steven Johnson

The book chronicles the devastating cholera outbreak in London's Soho district in 1854. It centers around Dr. John Snow, who created a map to trace the outbreak back to its source—a contaminated water pump—and Reverend Henry Whitehead, whose local knowledge was crucial in determining the cause. The narrative explores the historical context, the scientific and cultural roots of the miasma theory, and the impact of this event on modern urban planning, public health, and scientific inquiry. The book also reflects on broader themes such as urbanization, environmental crises, and the role of cities in solving the problems they create.

#4800

• Mentioned in 7 episodes

Emergence

The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software

Steven Johnson

In this book, Steven Johnson delves into the concept of emergence, explaining how self-organizing systems can lead to collective intelligence and higher-level structures without a central planner. He provides examples from diverse fields such as ant colonies, brain function, urban planning, and software design, highlighting how local, parallel interactions result in complex and adaptive behaviors. Johnson argues that the power of self-organization, coupled with the connective technology of the Internet, will revolutionize the way we see the world, much like the introduction of electricity did in the past.

#1286

• Mentioned in 22 episodes

Where Good Ideas Come From

The Natural History of Innovation

Steven Johnson

In 'Where Good Ideas Come From', Steven Johnson delves into the natural history of innovation by identifying seven key patterns: the adjacent possible, liquid networks, the slow hunch, serendipity, error, exaptation, and platforms. Johnson argues that innovative ideas often result from slow hunches that develop over time through interactions within 'liquid networks' of diverse minds. He also highlights the importance of environments that facilitate the mixing and mingling of ideas, such as big cities, which are more innovative due to their superlinear scaling of creativity. The book draws on historical examples and contemporary cases to illustrate how these patterns contribute to groundbreaking innovations.

#3376

• Mentioned in 10 episodes

The infernal machine

Jean Cocteau

#7079

• Mentioned in 5 episodes

How We Got to Now

Six Innovations That Made The Modern World

Steven Johnson

In this book, Steven Johnson examines the history of innovation, highlighting six key innovations that have shaped the modern world. He delves into unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated fields, such as how air-conditioning enabled massive migrations to cities, how pendulum clocks triggered the industrial revolution, and how clean water facilitated the manufacture of computer chips. The book is accompanied by a six-part television series on PBS and is written in Johnson's engaging and informative style.

We use it to find bestselling author Steven Berlin Johnson’s next project.

I sat down with bestselling author Steven Johnson to see if we could come up with a concept for his next project—using AI. The results were amazing.

We loaded 200,000 words of NASA transcripts and all of Steven’s reading notes since 1999 into NotebookLM, Google’s personalized research assistant. We wanted to see if it could help us explore the Apollo 1 fire and find relevant and surprising ideas from history that could work to explain it.

NotebookLM condensed disparate 200,000 words of NASA transcripts into readable formats like FAQs and chronological timelines.
It sifted through the material to identify the catalyst for the fire.
The model even went through Steven’s Readwise notes to find a relevant, and unexpected, story from history that we could use to explain the history and origins of the fire

If you’re a fan of Steven Johnson’s work or you’re interested in AI as a creative tool, you need to watch this episode.

All of this happens as a live exploration of NotebookLM, and it’s a seriously wild ride.

If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!

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Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.

To hear more from Dan Shipper:
⁠Subscribe to Every⁠
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Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
⁠Follow Steven Johnson
⁠⁠NotebookLM⁠
Steven’s newsletter, ⁠Adjacent Possible⁠
Steven’s latest book about the rise of the modern detective: ⁠The Infernal Machine⁠
A few of Steven’s other books: ⁠
How We Got to Now
⁠⁠Where Good Ideas Come From
⁠⁠The Ghost Map
⁠⁠Emergence
⁠⁠The Invention of Air

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