Hank Green’s problem is not with AI
It’s a cautionary tale for fellow creators
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
I don’t use AI. I like to burn myself out the old fashioned way! —Kate
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A little over a week ago, longtime YouTuber Hank Green admitted to using AI in his research for a recent video posted by Complexly, Hank and brother John Green’s media company. In the offending video, Hank commented that he “appreciated the pushback”; this was a reference to a guest he had just been speaking with, but many assumed he had inadvertently left a response from a chatbot in the script. In the words of Alex Shultz in Hard Reset: “If he was lying about that, yikes. If he was telling the truth, then it means he’s emulating the cadence of a chatbot, which is probably worse.”
In a Reddit reply, Hank says he’s been “relying too heavily on AI as a research aid” and that the level of dopamine he’s been receiving from using LLMs in his work is “not healthy.” He announced he would be taking a step back.
This incident has received a lot of coverage. Hank Green has a large fanbase, and just enough name recognition outside of it to pique the general public’s interest. But it doesn’t hurt that many outlets are framing Hank’s “not healthy” admission as evidence of something like AI psychosis. “Hank Green Confesses AI Addiction in Rare Creator Warning,” one headline reads (he never said this). If you actually read Hank’s words, you’ll realize this story is about something else.
Take this sentence from his first now-deleted tweet addressing what happened: “I was relying too much on generated notes. That’s a thing I’ve been doing and it’s a bad habit at a time when I’ve overcommitted myself.”
Or this, from his reply to a post about his tweet on Reddit: “I’ve been feeling the pressure of ‘Oh, I have this little video idea, I need to get it out real fast so I can get to the more important stuff’ and I create when I feel that pressure.”
Even a quasi-intervention from his brother John and his wife Katherine has, in my opinion, been taken out of context. “Neither of them think I’ve been being healthy,” he wrote. “I need to readjust.”
But here’s the sentence that preceded it (emphasis mine): “I need to come to terms with the fact that the level of dopamine I’ve been getting from interacting with LLMs...with doing more and more and more and more...is not healthy for me or good for the world.”
Hank does not have a problem with AI. He has a problem with burnout, and it’s one all creators will soon face.
