The second episode of the Hanna “In Focus” podcast is released. Yes, this podcast is generated with artificial intelligence but this gives listeners one more way to remain engaged and informed in a transparent, easy-to-follow summary of what’s happening in the community.
But, as with most ai, there are some inaccuracies. Because staff are always looking for quick and efficient ways to communicate, the decision was made to run with this version rather than try to change the content that the hosts choose to integrate. Hanna-ites will recognize these inaccuracies easily. First, the hosts say that Nickelback is not from Hanna and we all know that to be untrue. Second, they refer to grain elevators in the background of the music video and we are pretty sure the grain elevators were gone by the time the video was shot.
Rest assured, if we proceed with this method of communication we will never publish something that does not accurately reflect the decisions made at the council meeting. Among the report regarding decisions made and work completed, listen to the ai podcasters as they discuss the fact that they are reporting on their own ai podcast.
As an added note, Director of Business and Communication, Laurie Armstrong was interviewed recently for CBC radio. The show host wanted to showcase a community willing to dip their toes into advancing technologies for connecting with residents.
“Additional communities in Alberta have reached out to discuss how we did this” said Armstrong. “Quite simply, I took the motions made at the Nov. 12, 2024 Council Meeting as well as the written reports provided by staff. I copy/paste the content into Google’s NotebookLM and ask it to generate a podcast and a few minutes later, I have a file, ready for conversion and uploading to YouTube. I expect if I was using a paid version of the ai software, I would be able to correct any inaccuracies without having to start from scratch. It will be very interesting to see how the technology changes month-to-month.”
The team behind “Hanna in Focus” is eager to hear feedback from the community. Make sure to listen on the Town’s YouTube channel, found at https://youtube.com/HannaAlberta/podcasts. Have a listen.