WATERMARK

I suspect I have been on the internet longer than Hank Green, but I discovered him accidentally just a few months ago. Alan and I had found Jacob Collier last year on YouTube, so when he was interviewed by Hank it showed up on our YouTube feed. During that interview, Hank casually said something about flying into Missoula. That caught my attention. 

Later I did an internet (!) search, and discovered that this Hank Green is something of a celebrity living in my own town. He writes! He makes educational videos about science! He has two scifi novels to his name, and a brother who is also a novelist. He has millions of followers. Wow. (If I knew how I would stick an emoticon in here.)

We have watched him more-or-less steadily since then, and read both of his books. Alan watches science videos constantly. I’ve been a nearly-compulsive scifi reader since childhood; how did we miss him? I am pleased to have found him. So it saddens me to see him fall into the hell our social internet can be. 

Make no mistakes!

Was Hank’s mistake using AI at all? Or was it his totally-in-character honest personal disclosure about it? Does either earn the sort of hot-tempered attacks he is enduring? I say no.

One of the things I have appreciated about Hank has been his balanced perspective on issues, including this one that is costing him now. I have learned to trust his commitment to facts. I respect his personal honesty. 

That honesty is reflected in his statement to his fans, copied here from reddit: 

. . . 

“But mostly 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. It is careless, and has disconnected me from where people are on this.

“I was talking about this with Katherine last night and she did not pull any punches. Frankly, neither did John. Neither of them think I’ve been being healthy. I need to readjust.

. . . 

“What I can’t guarantee, though, is that we will agree about this technology or what to do with it. I think that’s good. We need a lot of kinds of folks critiquing this technology.

“I’m not a pure AI-hater, which people in the AI industry know, so when I say that the way these models were trained deeply disturbs me, that lands differently.

“When I say that I think that the speed at which these companies are trying to consolidate economic power should freak out everyone in the world, that’s coming from someone who has “nuanced takes.”

“When I say I worry about the climate impacts of this rollout, that is not me saying, “I don’t think this tech should ever exist” it’s me saying, “for god’s sake please don’t make our biggest problem worse.”

He says all this much better than I can, and I have tried. 

I hope to meet Hank someday. We are neighbors, of a sort, both online and in our blue Montana town. I have great respect for the work he has done, is doing, and I hope will continue to do in a long future.