Subscribers' Digest (1-30-25)

AI @ the Williamsburg Independent, York SOBs, JCC strategic plan, WJCC school contract, HTRFA live performance venue, Williamsburg development infographic & interactive map

(Graphic: George. Arbogust, Williamsburg Independent)

Hi and thanks for reading! This week, AI has been in the news big time. For the past few years, I’ve used ChatGPT to generate content on marketing websites. And I’ve also used it to produce some promotional content on this site (local B&Bs, local walking tours). But I’ve been reluctant to incorporate the tool into news coverage or commentary, mostly because I’m not sure how to do it the right way yet.

This week, Google extended access to an AI tool called NotebookLM, which they describe as a folder that becomes an expert in the information you put in it, including “Google Docs and slides, PDFs, web URLs, copied text, YouTube URLs…” To me, this is both terrifying, and an intriguing offer. In the near term, I could see gathering the dozens of documents it sometimes takes to complete a report and asking AI to answer key questions using the data — perhaps it could be published as an FAQ or tutorials. Down the road, I imagine building “d…