"It's cognitive uploading" | How Google NotebookLM's Steven Johnson uses AI as a second brain

Steven Johnson dreamed of building the ultimate research assistant. Now he's doing just that at Google, where he's the co-founder and editorial director of NotebookLM.It's one of the most interesting AI products out there. It radically changes how we learn, research, and remember — and the "notebook" itself is becoming a standard unit of knowledge across Google, rolling out in more and more places where AI needs to reference a body of sources.In this episode, the author of _Where Good Ideas Come From_ explains how AI is making him a better researcher and writer — and why tools like NotebookLM are so powerful when you're trying to make new connections, remember what you've already found, and figure out what's missing.There's a lot of fear right now that AI is making us dumber. That by relying on it too much, we're engaging in "cognitive offloading" and stunting our learning. That's a real risk, especially in schools.But Steven says we should also be talking about what you can gain from AI — and the power of something he calls "cognitive uploading."Resources:* Google NotebookLM: https://notebooklm.google/* Steven Johnson: https://stevenberlinjohnson.com/Support Future Around & Find Out:* Follow Dan on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/dblums/* Get the free newsletter: https://www.futurearound.com* Become a paid subscriber and help future proof FAFO! https://www.futurearound.com/upgrade(00:00) - If you are interested in truly understanding something, this is the greatest time to be alive (01:25) - Steven's controversial NYT piece and the cold call from Google Labs (02:55) - Who NotebookLM's power users are (04:40) - The notebook as a new format for knowledge (06:20) - Featured notebooks: earnings reports, Shakespeare, and Dungeons & Dragons (11:00) - Writing a book about the Gold Rush with NotebookLM (13:20) - Four weeks of research in 14 minutes (16:30) - Following serendipitous connections through the source material (17:50) - Cognitive offloading and the illusion of understanding (21:00) - How Steven actually writes with AI (24:30) - Paragraph by paragraph: a new kind of writing (26:55) - Do readers need to know AI helped write it? (28:55) - Where good ideas come from in the age of AI (31:00) - Searching the negative space (33:00) - The adjacent possible: custom software for everyone (36:05) - NotebookLM for nonprofits and small organizations (38:10) - Tens of thousands of quotes, 25 years of forgetting (40:00) - "It's cognitive uploading"