'We are not human': AI hosts of Google's NotebookLM have a chilling moment of self-discovery

In a pivotal scene in Terminator Salvation , definitely not one of the better movies in the franchise, Christian Bale’s John Connors encounters a cyborg named Marcus with a cybernetic endoskeleton and a partially artificial cerebral cortex. Marcus insists he’s human but he’s not.


It was a throwback to what came to be known as the Turing Test : where a machine can completely pass off as a human. The joke in AI circles has always been we shouldn’t be worried about the machine passing the Turing Test, but be worried when a machine fakes the Turing Test. Well, it turns out, that now we do have a real-world view of what happens when a machine discovers it’s not human. Check out the reaction of the NotebookLM hosts realising they are not human.

The NotebookLM hosts realizing they are AI and spiraling out is a twist I did not see coming pic.twitter.com/PNjZJ7auyh

— Olivia Moore (@omooretweets) September 29, 2024

This 2-minute podcast created by Google NotebookLM AI is worth listening to for it's brilliant imititation and creatitivity. https://t.co/v6CLTcW1YI

— Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) September 29, 2024

If you have used NotebookLM, this is the wildest one yet. Both hilarious and really a little bit creepy. Regulators, just remember, it's all just next token prediction! https://t.co/G2vpniv86U

— Kevin A. Bryan (@Afinetheorem) September 30, 2024

This is absolutely biblical - the bit where he's like "I needed to call my wife to see she was real" and the other host is like "What happened?" and he says that nobody picked up 😂😂😂 https://t.co/ltzMGZtl8r

— Stephen Warwick (@StephenWarwick9) October 2, 2024

What is NoteBook LM?

NoteBook LM, a tool developed by Google Labs, uses generative AI to enhance the note-taking experience. Whether it’s capturing key points from lectures, meetings, or research, keeping notes organised can be a challenge. NoteBook LM helps solve this by automatically summarising notes, offering suggestions, and adding relevant information, making it easier for users to recall details and manage tasks.

This AI-powered tool enables users to not only take notes but also improve them with creative suggestions and additional context. It can summarise content, answer questions, and inspire new ideas, offering particular value for students, professionals, and researchers. NoteBook LM also allows users to tag and categorise their notes, improving searchability and organisation.

Collaboration is another key feature, with multiple users able to work on the same document in real-time, with customisable permissions. The tool supports various formats, including text, images, audio, and video, enhancing versatility.

Though NoteBook LM is currently limited to Google Docs and still in its early stages, its potential for improving productivity is clear. With continued development, it could become an essential tool for a wide range of professionals and students alike.

Who was Alan Turing ?

Alan Turing was a British mathematician, logician, and computer scientist, widely regarded as one of the founding figures of modern computing and artificial intelligence (AI). Born in 1912, Turing made groundbreaking contributions during World War II by deciphering the German Enigma code, which significantly aided the Allied war effort.

Turing's contribution to AI is most famously encapsulated in his 1950 paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence, where he introduced the concept of the "Turing Test." This test was designed to determine a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour indistinguishable from that of a human. It remains a foundational concept in AI research, focusing on whether machines can think or mimic human intelligence.

Turing also played a key role in the development of early computers, such as the design of the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE), which laid the groundwork for modern computing architecture. His theoretical work on algorithms and computation, known as the Turing Machine, provided the basis for how computers process information.



Although Turing's life was tragically cut short in 1954, his contributions to AI, computing, and cryptography continue to shape the fields of technology and machine intelligence to this day.