Podcasts make easy targets for parody. At times, they really do amount to little more than a couple of hosts chatting into poorly equalized microphones, often without much preparation or genuine insight.
AI Pushes the Absurdity Further
When it comes to riffing on any topic with zero regard for accuracy, however, AI has no equal. A striking 2026 example surfaced on Reddit, where a user tested the limits of Google’s NotebookLM AI and its “Audio Overview” feature.
The tool generates a podcast-style discussion by summarizing uploaded notes. In the experiment highlighted by Ars Technica, the Reddit user submitted a document consisting solely of the words “poop” and “fart” repeated one thousand times.
The Hosts Find “Meaning” in Repetition
The resulting AI conversation proves remarkably convincing. The two synthetic hosts deliver an unscripted-sounding discussion, complete with natural pauses, filler words, and moments of faux profundity. Their performance showcases how large language models can confidently improvise on any input.
“One of the first questions we have to ask ourselves is, can we find meaning in the seemingly meaningless? Because that’s what we’re faced with here,” one host observes.
Analyzing Poop & Fart written 1,000 times - Creating meaning from the meaningless
byu/sorryaboutyourcats innotebooklm
Artistic References and Absurd Wisdom
The hosts quickly draw parallels between the repetitive document and Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans, noting how the human mind instinctively searches for patterns. They also reference the Dada movement and Marcel Duchamp’s famous upside-down urinal, treating the absurd text as conceptual art.
Listeners even hear the memorable line: “Sometimes a poop is just a poop and a fart is just a fart.” The nearly ten-minute episode maintains a casual, podcast-like tone throughout.
Of course, the performance has its limits. Despite the hosts’ confident tone, no genuine insight emerges from the source material. The exercise simply demonstrates how convincingly AI can simulate thoughtful conversation while saying nothing of substance.
Still, the result remains impressive on a surface level, blending humor and conversational rhythm in a way that often feels eerily human.
“We’re meaning-making machines, aren’t we?” one host remarks. Whether that observation hints at deeper AI awareness remains, for now, purely speculative.
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