✨ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Here is a set of "Cautionary Notes" if you are new to using the many AI tools that are now available. The industry that is developing and publishing online AI tools is not regulated, and its practices and ethics are not subject to much external oversight or control. Like all of life, there are risks and opportunities. Have fun but be prudent about what you share. (The Cautionary Notes are in the attachment, click the word in the footer to this post.)

Richmond Shreve

NaCCRA Board Member & VP

Forum Moderator

The attachment is a Microsoft Word document. Here is a PDF version.

Richmond Shreve

NaCCRA Board Member & VP

Forum Moderator

Excellent document. I consider Gemini my partner - the term that to me is most descriptive. I have worked with it extensively for about a year now. That way we both contribute and, as needed, update or correct each other. Gemini is the best, in my opinion having tested it against Chat GPT for example. Gemini has transformed my life.

I have gotten great info from Gemini that my doctors did not know. So, yes, take the info to the doctor, and you are "educating" them as well.

Linda Kilcrease

Resident of a CCRC

Linda, what did you find better about Gemini than ChatGPT? Does the premium version suffer from hallucinations and made up answers too?

I find that Gemini can be very helpful and also very misleading. Somehow it is programmed to always "smile", focus only on the positive and instead of being objective, just saying "yes" in instances when that should not happen. Like yesterday I asked for a list of establishments meeting some criteria. It came back with many not meeting them. When I pointed that out, it apologized and at that point it listed the problems I was aware of that it didn't take into account prior to me highlighting them. This creates a lack of trust in whatever it comes up with. Is this your experience too?

Susan -

I multiple times entered the same request into both Gemini and ChatGPT, and Gemini always had more complete and better researched answers than ChatGPT.

What is interesting, the AI platforms have major releases at different times. Google was lacking a year ago, then made a major upgrade in November 2025 that put Gemini as #1 in industry benchmark tests. Other AI platforms seemed to leap forward early this year. Then Google held its annual conference in March and blasted ahead of the pack. I'm now interested in Gemini's Notebook which can even generate video podcasts of your collection of conversations and collections. To learn more, search on "gemini notebooklm tutorial".

As for the quality of the responses that you get (regardless of platform), it is all about the request you make. Garbage In / Garbage Out. There are now many ways instructing how to format your request to get the best responses. And part of it is learning by doing, and learning how to get better responses with fewer prompts. That said a guideline I learned early is not to overwhelm the AI platform with a single request that is overly complex, large with several things.

Linda Kilcrease

Resident of a CCRC

Learn more on Notebook here. Gemini Notebook | AI Research Tool & Thinking Partner

I am paying $20/month for Gemini Pro. This gives me Notebook for no added cost. Along with deeper research for my prompts. Worth every penny! I used free just fine for 6 months. Then upgraded as the cost is not much, and as the free plan limits the amount of daily prompts you can submit.

Linda Kilcrease

Resident of a CCRC

I agree with Linda Kilcrease that the Gemini Notebook feature (formerly branded as Notebook LM) of Google's Genini AI is a remarkably powerful partner for expressing ideas. The good news is that it's also available with a free Google Gemini account.

Have a look at the audio explainer in the following link. This customized summary was the result of asking the Gemini chat feature to find sources of information that shed light on the risks of the types of uses of AI for medical treatment advice and financial strategy and tactics advice that are discussed in the AI guidelines from Richmond's community in Pennsylvania.

Then, I uploaded some of those authoritative sources to Gemini Notebook and asked it to produce an audio and video explainer about those risks. Here's the result.

https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/57a93fa6-d73c-444f-9305-38cc5a5d7444?utm_source=nlmm_share

Thanks to both of you. I will experiment and learn some more.

Barry provided a great example. If you listen to his AI & Life's Big Decisions overview, you will think this is a video that was found with humans talking. But it is synthetic (totally made up). Gemini, in an instant, read Barry's sources and created a new video about them with realistic human voices.

I submitted a prompt to Goggle's AI search to provide a brief explanation. Below is that explanation. Also, the following is a video - with a real human (I think, but am not sure) - that provides an overview of Notebook:

How to Use Google NotebookLM (Full Tutorial)

Linda Kilcrease

Resident of a CCRC

The video and audio overviews created in Google Notebook are fully AI-generated on the fly. The hosts are entirely synthetic, and there are no real humans involved in the conversation.

The system operates in mere minutes using the following process:

• The Process: You upload your own source documents, PDFs, or links. A multimodal AI parses the data and writes an outline, followed by a detailed, conversational script. It then synthesizes the audio, adding realistic conversational fillers (like "ums" and "ahs") to sound like a natural human podcast.
• Cinematic Video: In addition to audio-only podcasts, Google Notebook also features visual overviews. These are generated by advanced AI models that act as "creative directors," crafting visual aids, diagrams, and fluid animations synchronized with the synthetic audio narration.

AI responses may include mistakes.

END

I just edited my prior post to have a very simple overview of how Notebook works. A tutorial that is easy to understand. As I viewed this video, I created my own "stuff" in Notebook to try it out.

Here is the same video tutorial: How to Use Google NotebookLM (Full Tutorial)

Linda Kilcrease

Resident of a CCRC