We use it to find bestselling author Steven Berlin Johnson’s next project.

I sat down with bestselling author Steven Johnson to see if we could come up with a concept for his next project—using AI. The results were amazing.

We loaded 200,000 words of NASA transcripts and all of Steven’s reading notes since 1999 into NotebookLM, Google’s personalized research assistant. We wanted to see if it could help us explore the Apollo 1 fire and find relevant and surprising ideas from history that could work to explain it.

• NotebookLM condensed disparate 200,000 words of NASA transcripts into readable formats like FAQs and chronological timelines.


• It sifted through the material to identify the catalyst for the fire.


• The model even went through Steven’s Readwise notes to find a relevant, and unexpected, story from history that we could use to explain the history and origins of the fire

If you’re a fan of Steven Johnson’s work or you’re interested in AI as a creative tool, you need to watch this episode. 

All of this happens as a live exploration of NotebookLM, and it’s a seriously wild ride.

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Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Follow Steven JohnsonNotebookLM
Steven’s newsletter, Adjacent Possible
Steven’s latest book about the rise of the modern detective: The Infernal Machine
A few of Steven’s other books:
How We Got to NowWhere Good Ideas Come FromThe Ghost MapEmergenceThe Invention of Air