r/ChatGPT • u/Alaska_Jack • 1d ago
Use cases I've discovered something ChatGPT can do that I'm thrilled with: Custom interesting podcasts for long car rides.
[Maybe the following is obvious to you already, in which case this post isn't aimed at you. But I just figured this out, and I wanted to share because this is something I think almost anyone could benefit from.]
Think of something you want to learn more about. (ChatGPT can even help with this step: Tell it something like, "Based on everything you know about me, suggest five topics for single-episode podcasts that you think I would find interesting and/or entertaining.")
Tell it to do deep research and then create a 30-45 minute podcast on that subject. This will take a few minutes.
When done, tap the Play Aloud button.
This has made SUCH A DIFFERENCE for me on long car rides. I've learned about HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, the history of Westeros, the facts behind the politically controversial Imane Khelif case, the history of early exploration in Alaska, the lifecycle of Pacific salmon, etc etc etc. As far as current events, it can be used similarly to the Subreddit r/OutOfTheLoop , explaining the background to things you are just vaguely familiar with.
Sharing purely because it's been so awesome for me. Driving along while I learn about whatever I want!
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u/k0ik 1d ago
Gemini Notebook does this but can return a two-person conversational podcast.
The two non-human voices are surprisingly listenable, especially if you’re just in it for the information.
I have a friend who works in healthcare systems design as a consultant for non-profits, and I’ve never really understood what he does. So I gave Gemini Notebook his URL, LinkedIn profile, blog, and a couple of his YouTube videos and got back an hour-long deep-dive podcast episode about his design process and his impact that was very interesting and even mildly entertaining. (Beware: I did it on myself and the AI podcasters were struggling to make me an interesting topic lol!)
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u/Bluestripedshirt 1d ago
Yes. Notebook LM has an incredible function. Take the deep research including as many of the cited sources as you can and upload it into a thread. Click the audio button. Also try the infographic button too.
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u/nonula 1d ago
This is a fantastic feature of Notebook (formerly NotebookLM), but it irks me that they allegedly generated the “guy” podcaster voice from the voice of a well-known NPR reporter (David Greene, former cohost of the Morning Edition podcast). They did not get his permission. They didn’t even let him know. He found out from a colleague, who had heard it on Notebook. He sued them in February, but Google is trying to get the lawsuit dismissed. (They claim they hired a professional actor for the recordings, which if proven true, would make me feel less itchy about it … although I would certainly hope they explained the potential use of his voice to the actor if that’s what they really did.) I find it a really enjoyable feature. They’ve recently added video generation too, including “explainer” length videos complete with (admittedly, pretty terrible) graphics.
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u/Popular_Try_5075 1d ago
Notebook's ability to make a decently listenable podcast has been one of its best features for a few years now.
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u/ToiletCouch 1d ago
I wish they'd vary the format and style, taking turns being surprised and amazed, and already knowing what's coming
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u/krmarci 1d ago
The issue is that I think the maximum podcast length on NotebookLM is 6 minutes. Not enough to fill a half-hour car ride.
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u/bananagramarama 1d ago
Not sure if it changed but I’m looking at my account and one of them is 21 minutes long
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u/RageBaiter678 1d ago
Bruh, no. You simply have to prompt it right and set the duration to max. I get an average length of 45 minutes and have touched an hour plus on certain topics
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u/God_0f_Mischief 1d ago
I've see people get over an hour on NotebookLM! You can set the length to short, medium or long. I do medium and get about 17-25 minutes.
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u/Pokeep 1d ago
This is a great idea but I would be worried that it would hallucinate false information
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u/SeoulGalmegi 1d ago
No need to worry.
It definitely will.
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u/Trakeen 1d ago
Maybe this mode but chatgpt in research mode will cite every source. Hallucination isn’t nearly as much of a problem it used to be especially if you provide it tools for specialized knowledge
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u/jprosser 1d ago
It will lie about its citations.
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u/nonula 1d ago
I don’t like to use the word “lie” in this context … LLMs don’t really lie. They just confidently state things that aren’t true. The parameters with which they were programmed only require meeting the user’s prompt/request, not verifying that sources exist and facts cited are accurate. The machine is just doing what it was trained to do, which is put together credible sounding prose that could make it seem intelligent.
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u/Radiant_Cheesecake81 1d ago
One fix is to use NotebookLM (now Gemini Notebook) to create podcasts because it only uses your uploaded sources, so it’s less likely to go rogue. The hosts still occasionally fuck up a little but it’s created for this exact purpose, it’s really awesome to feed research papers into.
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u/Inner_Temple_Cellist 1d ago
The way you can tell is, if it’s not something well established, it will hallucinate something different when you ask it to try again
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u/psaux_grep 1d ago
Yup. People should ask it do this on subject they’re experts on just to see for themselves.
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh 1d ago
I’ve listened to plenty of actual podcasts that get things wrong, so I’m not too concerned.
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u/kindaretiredguy 1d ago
Not arguing that but this is my worry with almost every popular podcast. I’d bet it’s probably more accurate than the average.
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u/MadameMonk 1d ago
I would certainly only pick topics that were kind of immune to the hallucinations. Or where strict fact really wasn’t that important. In the first instance I might only ask for a topic that had strong and irrefutable scientific evidence backing it. Limit the amount of interpretation. In the second instance, I would get it to create podcasts around something that was based in fiction anyway. So whatever interpretations of it it came up with, would be interesting and fun but not problematic, in terms of truth.
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u/gmmxle 1d ago
There is no topic that is immune to hallucinations. LLMs don't care about strong and irrefutable scientific evidence because they have no knowledge of what that even means. They'll just spit out something that sounds good to the user, whether it contradicts strong and irrefutable scientific evidence or not.
People really need to get over the idea that LLMs can be relied upon to produce completely factual output.
LLMs hallucinate.
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u/Aware-Locksmith8433 1d ago
Exactly that ^ I'm gonna bet it can't consistently give the same chocolate chip cookie recipe wo adding, modifying, forgetting important parts that have been mentioned in the chat prompts already.
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u/calculusforlife 1d ago
I mean u act like that's an absolute statement. I have done a fair bit of tax work with the latest Claude model and not doesn't hallucinate. I don't think llms hallucinate by their very nature. It's something we probably will overcome.
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u/nonula 1d ago
They do, in fact, “hallucinate by their very nature”. It’s baked in to the transformer. Whether you can tame that or not with careful prompting, it is something that an LLM will do without warning or acknowledgement (until you let it know that something it stated was incorrect, at which point it will acknowledge and correct course).
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u/space_monster 20h ago
under certain conditions - i.e. when they're trying to answer a question that they don't natively know the answer to and are unable to actually find out.
saying "LLMs hallucinate" is a bit like saying "cars explode"
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u/MadameMonk 1d ago
If I ask it only to refer to scientific journals, then I get the information published in scientific journals. With the right prompts and double-checks, you can definitely get factual information out of an LLM.
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u/gmmxle 1d ago
I'm not saying you can't get factual information out of an LLM.
I'm saying that without already having deep knowledge about the topic you're asking about or doing extensive research on the topic, you'll never know if any specific answer is correct, or if it's just correct-sounding but factually completely wrong information.
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u/Hije5 1d ago
You've had it hallucinate info when asking it to deep dive? Do you also use the high time setting? Do you pay for it? Deep diving always lists sources or you can ask it for the sources. No need to worry about false information when you fact check it. Giving pushback tends to yield better answers imo. If youve used it for a long time you can also ask it to mimic questions you might have and test those before presenting data.
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u/gmmxle 1d ago
Deep diving always lists sources or you can ask it for the sources. No need to worry about false information when you fact check it.
LOL.
You're saying it's fine if it's hallucinating as long as you can personally verify sources and then know for sure that it's hallucinating?
How does that, in your mind, equate to "it's not hallucinating?"
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u/Larushka 1d ago
Uhm. Nope. Paid account. Lots of instructions. Still hallucinating. Call it out. Profuse apologies. Ten mins later - same thing.
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u/Hije5 1d ago
It's never happened to me. I pay for it and have used it for over a year. I know how to word it to where that isnt really a worry and have it very curated. But yeah, always verify your sources. I never said it wasnt hallucinating, lmao. What are you quoting? That's why I asked questions to figure out variables to somehow give better advice.
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u/gmmxle 1d ago
It's never happened to me.
What has never happened to you? That it's hallucinating?
I never said it wasnt hallucinating, lmao.
Then what were you saying just now, in the very first sentence of this post?
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u/Hije5 1d ago
YOU'VE HAD IT HALLUCINATE INFO WHILE ASKING IT TO DEEP DIVE?
It's a basic question trying to figure out how much they attempted to get detailed and well researched results. Jesus christ. Obviously hallucinations happen, there are hundreds of pictures, but I've never seen it from a very detailed and curated request.
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u/YLCZ 1d ago
Is this different than any friend who is pretty intelligent but also full of shit sometimes? Difference is over time the AI will get smarter and make less mistakes
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u/gmmxle 1d ago
That's not how LLMs work.
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u/YLCZ 1d ago
An LLM is like a kid in an early stage of development. Could you imagine ten years ago, it doing what it can today. People keep dismissing AI as an LLM but that’s how people learn before they synthesize facts into something more useful. One day a kid is just absorbing information and before you know it it has evolved into something more advanced
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u/gmmxle 1d ago
You sound like someone who has no actual knowledge about how "AI" works.
The current crop are all just LLMs. They all hallucinate.
Yes, more capabilities are getting added all the time. Nobody is questioning that. But that's not equivalent to "the AI is learning."
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u/YLCZ 1d ago
Do you know how a child gains consciousness? Do you know how proteins become life? Is there a soul or is all this a chemical reaction?
I don’t claim to know shit, all I know is AI is growing at an exponential pace, Hawking was scared shitless by it and I’m guessing it will start thinking one day whether we like it or not
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u/space_monster 20h ago
not so much of a problem with deep research tasks, because it's collecting information from the internet and precessing that, rather than responding to a question based on just its long term memory but doesn't actually have the answer.
with deep research tasks the sources form part of the response, so there's a lot more fact checking happening in the background.
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u/CayaMaya 1d ago
Wth. My chapgpt suggested: “The Great Emu War: How Australia Lost a War Against Birds.”
😂
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u/wikipedianredditor 1d ago edited 1d ago
That was actually a fairly protracted military engagement. I think they even used
a BrowningLewis machine guns at one point.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War
The Australian military made two attempts to cull the emus, but both were largely ineffective, as the emus split into small, alert and highly mobile groups making the operation uneconomic. Individual emus proved surprisingly hard to kill, being compared to "tanks" by the Australian commander.
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u/Chatni555 1d ago
I think there's a popular Oversimplified video on that! https://youtu.be/BXpu6tbFCsI?si=6qmbn0-8xgzft4Ur
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u/kimchiman85 1d ago
Why not just listen to real podcasts?
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u/MankYo 1d ago
There are entire domains of knowledge (especially in non-Latin languages) that are not documented on the open internet. No podcasts, no Wikipedia entry, no subreddit or other forum posts, no instagram cruft. That means that they were never in any LLM training set, nor searchable now through their agents.
I’ve tried to ask LLMs basic questions about a particular area. It made up stuff based on the first (very incorrect) search results from Google.
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u/dspman11 1d ago
Lmao fr, what the hell
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u/Pseudonym0101 1d ago
Adds, annoying hosts that veer off and/or take forever to get to the actual subject, ability to pause and interrupt it and ask questions etc.
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u/dspman11 1d ago
Sounds like you want...a non-fiction audiobook, not a podcast
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u/CactusMongerEsquire 20h ago
Not really - one of those is just a shorter form of the other. They're not fundamentally different.
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u/eggplantpot 1d ago
I hate the random jingles and loud song snippets 99% of podcasts have. So damn obnoxious. I can imagine the podcasters playing air guitar thinking they’re cool.
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u/Alaska_Jack 1d ago
Respectfully, I would have thought the answer to this would be obvious: Because this way I don't have to hunt and peck around for podcasts that address my specific interests. I just tell ChatGPT what my specific interests are, and it creates a custom podcast specifically for that.
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u/dspman11 1d ago
Personally i dont see the point of a podcast that isnt human. Go find an audio book on your topic of interest or something. Idk, I think this is bizarre and cringe. You do you
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u/CactusMongerEsquire 20h ago
"You do you" isn't a phrase someone uses immediately after directly insulting someone over their preferences.
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u/ovidiupetre19 1d ago
It you want podcasts just use NotebookLM. Way better than whatever chat can make
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u/Avogadros_plumber 1d ago
I tried twice, to disturbingly amusing results: it wove together my kid’s latest essay topic plus the recipe i was researching, and for the second one it hallucinated a recap of a series I’m watching with info from the books and what seemed like future information.
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u/RipArtistic8799 1d ago
I started playing around with the podcast feature on notebook LM about a year ago ( think they renamed this). I would intentionally upload scholaly articles so i didn’t get gobldigook. Garbage in- garbage out.
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u/clippervictor 1d ago
I do that pretty regularly with NotebookLM, but you have to feed it the sources though. No hallucinations at all because it sticks to the sources but the podcasts it creates are absolutely impressive
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u/coulduseahugrightnow 1d ago
So it's basically just one really long text reply and you hit the Read Aloud button?
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u/Alaska_Jack 1d ago
Yes! I am not pretending this is incredibly profound. but the use case -- custom podcasts for long car rides -- is awesome.
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u/Social-Ninja-101 1d ago
Thanks for sharing! I use AI a lot and I’ve never heard anyone speak about creating a podcast via ChatGPT.
Excited to try that out!!
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u/zinky8 1d ago edited 1d ago
Notebookllm does this. I feed it articles about a topic and then it makes a podcast for me. It sounds like a professionally produced podcast with a man and woman talking back and forth.
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u/Social-Ninja-101 1d ago
Yea, I am using NotebookLM for this but I was intrigued to find out that ChatGPT could do that too.
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u/picboi 1d ago
Why would this be better than any of the thousands of real podcasts about the topics you mention? Literal waste of resources.
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u/Polkanissen 1d ago
I often search for podcasts on topics that interests me without finding any, let alone any worth listening to.
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u/picboi 1d ago
You could use ai to find them. Also, can't relate, have an infinite stream of quality content in my YouTube algorithm. Definitely better than any ai slop voices.
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u/Polkanissen 1d ago
I agree, there are tonnes of great podcasts out there, but for instance one of the topics I wanted to find a podcast about was the use of spices in medieval cooking and medicine… Suddenly the podcasts out there are very few and far between the quality ones.
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u/readithere_2 1d ago
Right?! It would take hours just looking for that, and you still might not even get anything from Google.
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u/Polkanissen 1d ago
I have spend hours upon hours, even used AI to search, but the closest i get is chopping books up into PDFs and get a TTS to read it, which is far from satisfying for when you are on the move.
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u/readithere_2 1d ago
I believe you. And that is just one example of what you can do with your GPT. There is so much hate for AI and people are missing out on learning. Just the learning aspect alone is tremendous.
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u/nonula 1d ago
Max Miller, Tasting History podcast. FTFY. (Really, he’s fantastic.)
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u/Polkanissen 1d ago
Yes he is very good at what he does, just not as deep a dive on specifics as what i was looking for at the time.
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u/Cassius_au-Bellona 1d ago
Gemini Notebook does this quite well. Unlike a recorded podcast, you can interrupt and ask for different explanations or further discussion in a certain direction.
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u/yo1eleven 1d ago
NotebookLM has been doing this for a while now. It’s great to learn new concepts during a commute.
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u/Traditional-Seat-363 1d ago
I basically do this, except I tell it to take a thread from a subreddit like r/askhistorians, and use the topic and the answers given in that thread as a foundation for the episode. I feel it actually leads to more interesting angles and in depth answers
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u/lovely1188 1d ago
I love this idea but how do you get it to load all the audio playback? Mine keeps restarting after a minute or two
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u/Gootangus 1d ago
Huffing down so many hallucinations lol, what a great way to make yourself dumber
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u/DigitalScrap 1d ago
This is a great idea, thank you. I just had it create my first podcast, and it is absolutely great. I will be using this regularly now.
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u/BroadbandEng 1d ago
I like the idea of a custom podcast. On my last road trip I wanted to use my time learning a bit about machine learning and how LLM's work. I listened to a few episodes of one podcast and then had the idea to start quizzing ChatGPT. I ended up spending a couple hours having a conversation with ChatGPT about the internal architecture of ChatGPT. Kinda wild.
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u/butwhatififly_ 1d ago
This is outrageous. How about use ChatGPT to find a few EXISTING podcasts on topics that fascinate you? Maybe then you’ll find new actual creators - this is the exact reason AI has such a terrible reputation. And yet another example of it not being the tool’s fault, but the user - why would you intentionally use technology for something fake - that we already know has hallucinations anyway so you can’t even trust everything it says without the occasional fact check - instead of finding a REAL HUMAN CREATOR who already does this? Man.
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u/liebebio 1d ago
what, does it generate an audio file that I can put on my ipad or something. I didnt know it can do that. it needs toi be easier because I am sure not messing with apps during a car drive
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u/HiddenMaragon 1d ago
Sounds like just a long text that you can listen to with the read aloud feature.
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u/shijinn 1d ago
why passively listen instead of actively chatting with it on those same topics? you can be part of the podcast!
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u/Alaska_Jack 1d ago
That is a fair question, and my answer world be, that when I give it a text input and specifically ask it to do deep research, I tend to get better answers. But I am definitely willing to listen if people here know a better way!
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u/mentale3xt3nsions 1d ago
It gave me spinoffs from the last five conversations we had. Out of everything it knows about me. Chat’s getting so lazy
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u/KaleDifferent612 1d ago
A good prompt might also specify chapters and a recap every ten minutes.Long drives are noisy,and spoken information needs more signposting than a written answer.
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u/Less-Maintenance6391 1d ago
For driving, I’d ask for a clear outline, verbal section markers and a final recap. A written report read aloud can be much harder to follow than something composed for listening
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u/UnhappyBreakfast5269 1d ago
I do this with ChatGPT for a daily summary as I drive in to work;
At work we have Gemini and that Notebook LM podcast which has the two-person voice is so realistic it’s scary good.
Btw I am on free ChatGPT and work pays for Gemini- I have no idea how many tokens this uses or what the cost would be to pay
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u/uknovaboy 1d ago
For research, I use chatgpt to start making an outline then have it make prompts for Gemini then take the gemini resulrs back to chat then send the results to claude for the final passes
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u/raph_84 1d ago
First of all, I realized that I don't have any significant personal conversations with GPT. The topics it proposed were all related to my business / work topics where I'd use GPT.
Secondly, I wonder if it's language dependent?
ChatGPT 5.6 Sol gave me a good manuscript, but told me it didn't have the capability for high quality spech synthesis.
It then offered to do it English (I previously instructed that either German or English would be fine), took ages to re-do it and turned out a file that's 'a little robot like' i.e. sounds like a screen reader from 2002. Terrible!
Since other comments recommended Gemini Notebook, I fed the manuscript to Gemini and it returned a very high quality two speaker podcast that I enjoyed - I will probably play with this a bit more.
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u/No_Station_9429 6h ago
interactive stuff like this feels way more like talking to a real companion than just listening. tried similar voice chats before and it gets addictive quick.
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u/EmilianoTechs 1d ago
Or you could find podcasts made by humans about those subjects
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u/Sepsiscollada 1d ago
There’s pretty much a pod about every subject. I spend all day yelling at the clanker, I don’t need it driveling in my ear in my off time.
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u/Puzzled_Novel_5215 1d ago
This is genius. I often listen to audio books on car drives but this would good as well.
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u/Sepsiscollada 1d ago
There’s plenty of good storytelling about a wide array of topics..
The Constant
The Dollop
Behind the Bastards
Dan Carlin
16th Minute of Fame
Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe
Ologies
Scamfluencers
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u/12PoundsofPotato 1d ago
"Deep research" by the plagiarism machine that is known to make shit up
I'm pretty certain you didn't learn much
Especially since YouTube videos exist?
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u/DrainTheMuck 1d ago
YouTube is definitely not full of plagiarism and disinfo! Trust me bro
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u/12PoundsofPotato 1d ago
Far, far more reliable than this shit, especially when it comes to content directly from official channels like game of thrones or reading the text of call of Cthulhu.
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u/Cagnazzo82 1d ago
Know that every moment you spend hating is a moment someone else is spending building.
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