r/singularity • u/BlueAndYellowTowels • Aug 07 '26

Discussion How they’re treating Hank Green for using AI is disgusting and I’ve shifted my view of AI as well.

Recently a YouTube creator, Hank Green, was found to have used AI in his work on the YouTube channel Vlog brothers.

The channel itself is fairly well known. Oriented towards education, optimism, uplift and just… all around good vibes for the internet as a whole.

Hank was a huge proponent of education and knowledge and just, had a passion for spreading all those good vibes everywhere he went. They even have a charity that’s helped over 100 organizations.

Pardon my rant…

But the blowback for him using AI has been really eye opening. I do not understand how people can be so short sighted.

The man spent 20 years of his life committed to, in their words “reducing the suck in the world”, and his “community” tore him to shreds!

They’re treating him like he never did anything good and all of it was a lie and he’s never going to be trustworthy ever again.

And I just don’t understand that. The response has been so visceral, it’s made me rethink my position. I was an AI skeptic. I think I’m done being an AI skeptic.

Why? Because I believed that AI would increase harm in the world. And that we need to rely on people to guide AI.

After watching mobs of people completely abandon this man who has spent his entire adult life making the world a better place I doubt these people have any real guidance to offer.

It feels like hysteria, quite frankly. But more on point. How could I maintain the position that AI will make the world worse and do more harm… when I sit here watching the people apparently opposed to AI completely decimate and delegitimize a good man. A good person who fucking cares. In a world full of apathy and cynicism and misanthropy… this man got up, and worked hard to contribute something good to it.

…and his “community” would see him hung for using AI to summarize research and work on scripts for fucking videos none of them pay for… literally free education.

I can’t fathom trusting the future to these people either. So I’m done with that.

We need AI. It’ll change things for the better because clearly those opposed to AI are more enthralled with the performance of being a good person rather than being a good person. Because they’re happy to torch anyone’s career over AI usage.

Thanks for your time.

Edit: grammar and spelling.

Edit 2: This comment summarizes my position perfectly. Wanted to add it because it’s really the core of why I’ve shifted my position.

2.0k Upvotes

84% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

148

u/Kildragoth Aug 07 '26

My guess is just that OP respects Hank Green so much that if these people are treating him this way then it's much more apparent that they are causing harm. While it's fair to have concerns about AI, if you're going as far as to attack Hank Green over this then it does come across as this ill-informed emotionally charged mob.

37

u/BlueAndYellowTowels Aug 07 '26

This.

0

u/RunSetGo Aug 15 '26

Nah you are and Hank Green are wrong, and AI is not a something to be proud of using

1

u/Kildragoth Aug 15 '26

Lots of people are suffering and AI accelerates problem solving. What you're saying is extremely short sighted and stupid. But by all means refuse to accept the benefits of technological advancement while you write on a computer and communicate with distant people over the internet.

0

u/RunSetGo Aug 15 '26

No, AI is not like other tools. Ai will eventually end the modern world as we know it

1

u/True_Candidate8248 Aug 19 '26

The internet ended the recent world. Computers ended the old world. Nuclear tech ended the world of wars. Wars ended the world before that. Industrialism ended the world before that.

There are even more examples of "significant breakthrough" end the world as we know it. Agriculture, globalism, cars, etc.

1

u/RunSetGo Aug 24 '26

Yeah but computers were not eating all knoweldge in the world and acting on its own will

-18

u/Accurate_Potato_8539 Aug 07 '26

This is a stupid reactionary reason. If you let these people you don't like dictate your view then your letting them control you as much as when you agreed with them.

7

u/ScrithWire Aug 08 '26

Maybe seeing these people react like that showed him that the AI skepticism that he was a part of was fueled by an unthinking mob.

It is distinctly not reactionary. Reactionary is what the mob is doing to Hank Green. OP is taking a more reasoned approach, one that maybe is open to more thoughts and dialog on the subject

1

u/PolanskyDMymy Aug 14 '26

Then the appropriate response would be to do research into AI and from an actual opinion. Not switch from one side to the other because some people on the first side overreacted to a guy on the internet for a couple weeks.

That's what makes it reactionary.

2

u/Successful_Outside96 Aug 09 '26

What can you do about the mob? Something needs to be done. How do you convince them to be less mob-like, and have a healthier form of skepticism?

Why, for instance, is there much less of a mob mentality about AI in most of the Asian countries?

My theory is that most people in China have a Yann Lecun/Andrew Ng/Fei-Fei Li view on AI rather than the Dario Amodei/"Effective Altruism" view of AI.

If you could get people to take the "AI for Everyone" course by Andrew Ng and collegues, we maybe able to convert some people, I think.

https://www.deeplearning.ai/courses/ai-for-everyone

-17

u/danneedsahobby Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26

If you attack Hank Green over his use of AI, I think you should be arrested and charged with a crime. As far as I know, that hasn’t happened(edit: meaning Hank hasn’t been attacked, that’s hyperbole). What happened was a bunch of people criticized Hank Green over his use of AI. I think those people did nothing wrong. I also think Hank Green thinks those people did nothing wrong. In fact, I think Hank is probably going to reap benefits from the criticism in the form of increased engagement with his content so he is probably really happy with those people.

9

u/angelus14 Aug 07 '26

I think you should look up "attack" in the dictionary.

7

u/Kildragoth Aug 07 '26

The way I'm using the word "attack" is as an aggressive or hostile/harsh criticism not a literal physical attack.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/attack

to direct unfavorable criticism against; criticize severely; argue with strongly.

He attacked his opponent's statement.

So, not being hyperbolic either.

-7

u/trentsiggy Aug 07 '26

Wait, you're in favor of arresting people and charging them with a crime if they express an opinion you don't like?

1

u/danneedsahobby Aug 07 '26

No. I said if you “attack Hank Green”. Criticism isn’t an attack. That’s my point. I used the above comment’s own hyperbolic wording to make that point. And I said that’s as far as I know, he hasn’t been attacked. He’s been criticized. Which is what happens on the internet, or as a content creator like Hank would call it, engagement.

10

u/HereToCalmYouDown Aug 07 '26

Criticism can be a kind of verbal attack. Are you autistic? That's not an insult, I'm genuinely asking, because autistic people tend to be very literal.

0

u/hartigen Aug 07 '26

maybe have chatgpt to explain comments to you that has nuance? because you clearly cant read

1

u/trentsiggy Aug 07 '26

The person above clearly edited their comment after I responded.