Comment by jhbadger
11 days ago
It's almost impossible now. NotebookLM really impressed me. I knew voice synthesis has gotten better than Stephen Hawking's "voice" but I really wasn't expecting having two realistic voices with emotions that even banter with each other. There is a bit of banality to them - they like to call something a "a game changer" practically every "podcast" and the insights into the material is pretty shallow, but they are probably better than the average podcaster already.
It's impressive at first until you realise they're practically ad libbing a script. They're filled with all the same annoying American clichés ("you know me, I like x", your aforementioned "a game changer", plenty of "wow"). It would be impossible to listen to two in a row without realising how repetitive it is.
Fun fact, Stephen Hawkins could’ve used a much “better” synthetic voice but decided to stick with that one as people associated it with him.
And he associated it with him, in his thoughts.