Hank Green, a very famous Missoulian in the realm of YouTube and online forums like Reddit, has made national headlines recently for admitting that he relies "too heavily" on ChatGPT for some of his research and for acknowledging that it's a "bad habit."
Green has almost 3.2 million YouTube subscribers. In 2012, he and his brother John Green founded the nonprofit Complexly, which produces the popular YouTube shows SciShow, Crash Course, PBS Eons and others. He's written two novels that made the New York Times Bestsellers list, and he and John created the VidCon festival, billed as the largest conference in the world for online video creators.
Green lives and works out of Missoula, often commenting online about various things in the community.
His name was all over the news in the past couple weeks, with publications like Scientific American, Vox, CNET and Plagiarism Today all posting articles about a recent controversy involving Green and the use of artificial intelligence.
In late July, fans of his YouTube show began posting allegations that at least one phrase Green used in a video sounded like it was generated by AI.
In a since-deleted post on X, Green addressed the issue on July 31.
"I produced this under a ton of pressure so I went and checked my process from start to finish," he wrote. "I did use ChatGPT for research on this script and watching it I definitely get an AI feel, so I think it’s fair to say 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."
After the post was deleted, Green took to Reddit to further explain himself in a lengthy post.
"I have been relying too heavily on AI as a research aid," he said. "It can be very useful for this task, giving me access to a lot of papers I didn't know existed really fast, but I think that has been to the detriment of my work because it has not given me the freedom to find all of my own ways into and around a topic."
He said that he's sorry for "diluting" himself.
"But mostly I need to come to terms with the fact that the level of dopamine I've been getting from interacting with (Large Language Models, a type of artificial intelligence) ... 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," the post said.
He went on to say that his YouTube channel may get dialed back a little bit, and he was pausing a couple games.
An Aug. 3 article in Inc. Magazine ran with the headline "After Years Building a Brand on Authenticity, Hank Green Says He Relied Too Much on ChatGPT. Now He’s Scaling Back."
On Aug. 10, Green posted another update on YouTube.
In that, he said he's created an AI policy for himself. The first part of that policy states that no portion of any script will be written, edited or outlined by an LLM.
"One thing that has emerged from the conversation about me not feeling great about how much I had integrated LLMs into my process is that it might be a good idea for creators to have an AI-use policy," he said. "It's definitely a good idea for me. My overwhelming concern here is that the things I make are accurate and that people can trust both in that accuracy and that the perspectives you're seeing will forever remain mine."
Last year, workers at Complexly voted to join a labor union, the Communications Workers of America.
The Missoulian reached out to the union to see if they had any language in their contract about acceptable uses of AI.
"Complexly United is currently in the midst of negotiations for our first contract," said Katie Brink Ryan on behalf of the Complexly United bargaining committee. "Our bargaining committee is actively working with management to reach agreement on a number of topics, including AI. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide further details while negotiations are ongoing."
The Missoulian did not receive a response to a request for comment from Green.