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So, I still don’t like NotebookLM…
I’m trying to keep an open mind. Maybe I’m uploading too many sources. Or maybe I’m not prompting it properly. Or maybe I’m not running the right studio tool. I don’t know.
What happened?
So, I have delivered nearly a dozen AI guest lectures, CE courses, and presentations (including keynotes) over the past two years. They are all variations of each other, tailored for different audiences, and with updates as necessary over time. Some of them are topic-specific, like the neuroscience one I did a little over a week ago.
Anyway, I was starting to get lost in going through all of them, each time I wanted to create an updated one or tailor one for a new audience or subject. So I tried NotebookLM for consolidation and streamlining by:
uploading all of my existing presentations as sources
prompting the chat feature to review all of them in depth, consolidate key areas, and create a comprehensive outline that includes everything in a logical flow
used the studio tool to “create a slide deck”
went to sleep (it was 11PM)
Y’all, I woke up the next morning, and nearly 10 hours later, that thing was still spinning. No updates. No “failure” output. Just… still spinning, as if it was still working on it.
So I went back to my trusted Claude for outline and Gamma for slide creation - chef’s kiss.
And this is why I have trust issues. I guess that’s a good thing with AI tools, though.
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