Alright, so he got addicted to what felt like an easy source of knowledge. Can happen to anyone.
I guess I’m just tired of finding things to be upset about. I’ve lived more than five decades and it’s been outrage after outrage after outrage.
I’m tired, boss.
He’s admitted there was a problem and it got out of hand. If he changes, what’s the huge deal going forward?
We need social safety nets. We need universal health care. We need to kick fascists out of our government. And sure, we need to fix smaller problems, but jesus christ does every last thing have to be drama?
This is an issue I’m seeing more and more of. People are demanding that others be perfect at all times. We all fuck up and make mistakes. If we write off everyone we’ve ever disagreed with as irredeemably bad, then we’re telling people there’s no point in growing and changing.
When I was a kid in the early 90s in Texas, I thought homosexuality was immoral. I was wrong and I’ve spent the last 30 years preaching for inclusion and tolerance. And that’s the story for most people my age. In the 90s, a Democratic President banned openly gay people from being in the military.
If we want to change society, we have to invite others to our side with open arms, not condemn them.
People demand others be perfect so they can live vicariously through them while their own life is a miserable mess. They refuse to have any form of introspective and self acknowledgement of themselves to make their own lives better, so they need others around them to be perfect, even if those others is a para-social relationship with a Youtuber.
Preach.
We need tolerance. Our society has become so dictatorial, even the most left leaning and liberal ones, we simply cannot tolerate anything we don’t agree with.
Everyone wants to make their own perfect universe where everybody says and does one thing. We should accept each other’s mistakes and faults, and live in more harmony.
Yeah, I feel the response has gotten way out of hand. Sure, I’m not happy about it. But I have some faith Hank will actually reflect on the situation.
I like Hank, and this is a shitty article.
That aside he should be facing a revolt.
Hes supposed to be a credible source, hes an educator, hes the modern day Bill Nye. It’s very hard to take anything he says as objective truth when his research and fact checking consists of asking an LLM. Considering hallucinations and straight up lies are not only common but not even unexpected for an LLM you can’t believe anything that comes from one nor can you believe anyone who uses one.
I’m going to wait and see how he handles this hurdle before I form any long term opinions. Could be an honest mistake that he learns from and improves for the future.
I mean this is true of all sources and they should be checked.
He didn’t state what his actual process was. People assume that just means firing out a query and no bothering to check it, he said he uses it to summarize sources to see if they are worth reading. I don’t think that’s unreasonable if he still reads them.
Regarding using it to write scripts, I think if you use LLMs to generate something you are good at making and are picky and opinionated about, the review process very quickly makes you skeptical about the output.
Before the response, IP rights and environmental effects of LLMs are completely valid and are a valid reason for opposing them. Don’t just assume someone’s using it out of laziness instead of in an attempt to scale up their own work.
Papers have an abstract and summary sections SPECIFICALLY for this reason and usually aren’t more than a paragraph; there’s no excuse to use LLM.
I read a decent number of papers. If you’re looking for something specific, and abstract isn’t enough. If you want to research something specific that’s not the core focus of the paper, you at least need to skim it.
If Hank Greene is understaffed, using AI to prefilter papers isn’t a terrible use of the technology.
I think that’s unreasonable, but that’s just me.
Ok
Addictive behavior often includes being incapable of accurately describing or confronting their usage habits.
Facts
It’s not from my understanding he was using AI for semantic search to find paper to research
You know llm sources are just as verifiable as anything else right? All information is imperfect and has to be verified, period.
Hes supposed to be a credible source, hes an educator, hes the modern day Bill Nye.
There are no credible sources on YouTube. He’s just a guy with a computer and a camera. Youtube is about selling you stuff, people need to accept that.
The beauty of YouTube is that the goals of the company are not necessarily the goals of the content creators.
I’ll take any chance I can get to shout out Nick Zentner. Hes a professor of Geology at Central Washington University and he has been posting full length lectures on YouTube for more than 15 years. He is a comprehensive expert in his field and regularly features experts in related fields to help discuss whatever topic he is on at the time.
I used to use his videos to fall asleep, but I have developed a genuine love of geology and vulcanology that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.
A hyper rational take.
You can find some older, rare exceptions, but it is impossible to maintain integrity and fulfill the YouTube algorithms. People think YouTube content is credible because YouTube algorithms give you what you want to hear.
Great starting point for wasting time maybe.
Let me waste 5 minutes reading slop than another 20 min tying to figure out if its a hallucination or just not accurate. 25 minutes that could have been reading a credible accurate source…
In the scenario, what pointed you towards said credible accurate source? Google?
Not op, but a search engine is a better starting point than an LLM, because it is a predictable tool, fetching internet resources which can be evaluated on their merits.
The AI presents itself as the actual information.
I see too many people in my daily life saying “the ai summary said…” and it is worse than useless.
A page rank based search engine would still require a vetting of results.
Google is mostly AI currated results, it will push approved and sponsored souces.
Google is shit.
Google is a search engine, not a source.
what pointed you
Yes, that was implied.
I don’t know about going that far - LLMs can be a great starting point …. As long as you click through to the sources rather than blindly accept
Then you can also just as well skip that extra step and just do it yourself
I could have always skipped the dewey decimal card catalog and just read the entire library but I’m not mycroft fucking holmes. You don’t have to use a search engine, you can just follow hyperlinks until you find the content you’re looking for.
Creating science Youtube videos is not more important than maintaining a livable planet. AI is unnecessary and harmful, and should not be used outside of certain brute-force type of applications like protein folding, simulating new drug structures, or preliminary cancer diagnosis.
I mean you could say the same thing about YouTube being unnecessary and wasting power.
Yes, I could, and then I’d look very stupid and annoying, so I won’t.
Use of Youtube isn’t spiking fossil fuel consumption to an appreciable extent like AI is.
Golf courses use 30x the water that data centers use. Lawns, 100x. Standby mode for appliances costs more energy, by a lot. I wonder how much carbon emissions are offset by people no longer driving to work at call centers and the like.
Out of curiosity do you eat meat? .2% of water is used on data centers. 9.8% is used on beef. For carbon emissions one pound of beef consumed is equivalent to about 640,000 prompts.
AI is an environmental concern but the way people act about it is straight up ridiculous.
Edit: I am very proud of all of the vegans who unplug their appliances who are downvoting me. I, too, am a vegan who unplugs their appliances.
I don’t have a golf course or a membership so
thanks for that irrelevant factoid
and yes I am vegan, but eating meat is, in many cases, a culturally ingrained practice which people need time to understand the harms of. AI is not culturally ingrained for anyone with an actual culture. People need to eat - it shouldn’t be meat, but I’m not going to shame people for not seeing their harm yet. People do not need to generate slop. I am going to bully all AI users.
Do you think AI is mostly generating slop? Only like 5% of AI use is private individuals.
The point is that this is not actually an ecological hazard the way people say it is, and that there are much, much more pressing issues if we’re going to fix the environment. Literally all we would have to do to solve global warming is stop eating meat. You see anywhere near as much about that as you do datacenters? Which cause less than one percent of the environmental issues of meat?
I know all AI is an ecological hazard and none of its use cases aside from very narrow medical and scientific applications justify using it at all.
People have been eating meat longer than humans have had languages. Your whataboutism is boring and irrelevant. Just because there are other, larger, necessary steps to take doesn’t mean we need to act as unpaid apologists for technocultists shooting our species in the foot while we try to get there. Fuck your AI.
Don’t eat beef, the animals I eat would use the stuff no matter what.
If every human ate wild meat, the last calorie of wild animals would be consumed before the end of the first afternoon of the first day.
no its true. ChatGPT is confidently wrong all the time, but I find its wrong in ways I can learn from anyway. I ask the question. it gets the answer wrong. But its wrong in a useful way where I actually learn more by correcting it than just getting the right answer.
I could get the same experience from talking to a person for much less money though
They tend to work much better when you point them at things. Hallucination rates go way, way down when they aren’t pulling from their “memory.” They are, also, like you say, wrong in ways that are noticeable and often “interesting” in the Ibsen way. I also doubt that you could get the same experience for less money. I’d have to go back to college to get the education I’m getting with AI. At least community college. It’s a lot of near-experts at once. And when you point it at expert literature it basically is a senile college professor. But yeah the senile part of that statement is pretty important.
The fact that people think LLMs should be trusted as a starting point is heartbreaking to me.
But why? If you try to be objective, how is this any different from an op Ed or other published article? Those are good starting points as well, but also shouldn’t be published as your work or trusted as is.
The problem with LLMs is not when people use them as a tool, but when they use inappropriately, blindly trust them or treat them as a final result instead of thinking, reviewing, or adding value.
An article has context. Who published it? What else has the author written? Llm articles strip that all out.
I can’t speak for all LLMs but the ones I use
- web based LLM cites its sources. You can just click
- coding LLM tends to have obvious sources (for example if I tell it to use a vendor API to do something, I know there’s API documentation as the source of truth and the script is just like the example I would previously have found on StackOverflow.com).
And yes, I frequently check its work and iterate through telling it to
Hank has been an advocate for knowledge for far longer than LLMs have existed. His recent use of them is disappointing, but I fell like this does not discredit the work he has done throughout his career to push curiosity.
What he does next will be important and will decide how I interact with his content going forward. It seems like he is aware of his missteps and is looking to make a change.
I am not a perfect human and do not expect celebrities to be perfect at all times.
He’s been obviously struggling since he got cancer. He’s in remission now and that’s great but I’ve been watching him slowly slip into PTSD. I have medical PTSD, I have cystic fibrosis and had a double lung transplant in 2014 and I see him devolving the same way I did. I’m literally two days away from getting out of an inpatient trauma treatment center that I’ve been at for a month because I didn’t take the medical PTSD seriously because I didn’t realize I needed to, I think he is in the same boat. I think he was already spread way too thin then cancer happened and he’s stuck in a hyper reactive state which is exhausting and eventually leads to the more classic PTSD symptoms and he’s probably turning to LLMs to try to keep up as the PTSD drains his batteries and he’s unaware of it. I hope he gets help soon and he doesn’t wait for it to get as bad as I did, PTSD kills if you let it get away from you.
I’m sorry that things got bad enough to require inpatient care, but I’m glad you were able to get some help — I hope it did actually help. I know from firsthand experience that one never fully recovers from PTSD, in the sense that you can’t go back to how things were before. However, I also know that it’s possible to continue living life with the psychological equivalent of a massive scar, even if it is still red and angry and often painful — but not really possible to when instead of a scar, you have an open, gaping wound.
I hope you were able to make some progress towards healing, even if it’ll take much longer to fully heal.
I also appreciate your attempt to leverage your own experience to promote compassion for Green. I’ve not read the rest of the comments here yet, but I can imagine there are a lot of people with uncharitable stances towards the situation. I am pretty steadfastly anti-AI, but I think it’s important that we consider the person at the centre of any problematic AI use
Why the fuck would you use AI to write this.
I’m not AI, just struggling to articulate myself in matters like this. Though I can see why you thought it was AI — reading it back, I can see that there are a few phrases that are common AI-isms. I’m pretty opposed to AI use at the best of times, but I agree with you that it would be fucked up to use it for this.
No Tricafta or any of the newer ones work for you?
The last stage trials came out when I was in the ICU waiting for my lungs, it wasn’t an option I was too sick. That said I’m glad I got new lungs since I’m significantly healthier now than the people I know going the gene editing route, obviously survivorship bias is at play since I got great lungs but I’m very healthy these days, even if I did end up living in the ICU for 6 months, 3 pre transplant and 3 post, we joke I paid for them upfront since I hadn’t had any serious issues after I was discharged, other than the mental toll of course.
Glad he’s recognizing the problem and trying to get help. Instant gratification is a hell of a drug.
People need to chill the fuck out
it’s more fun to flip out over random harmless bullshit than stuff that actually matters though.
How DARE you!
There are few people I trust more than Hank Green when it comes to something like AI.
And that‘s exactly the problem. Somehow this guy has earned a lot of trust and he wasn‘t handling that trust very well. That‘s why people who stand for something like him, should be held accountable and to higher standards than say your aunt posting AI cats with hats in the family group chat.
I thought something was up when he had interviewed some random ass AI expert talking about Mythos because he bought into the whole “OMG it’s gone rogue” bullshit.
I’m not a huge fan of the videos he hosts (I don’t like how he cuts every millisecond between sentences), but SciShow is a genuinely good channel and I’m glad he realized he had problems. Wishing him all the best!
I feel like if that was your primary takeaway from that, the entire point was lost on you.
Take away from what?
From that video, it discusses more than just the fear mongering. It talks about how it works and why we don’t understand it and why we can’t really peer into the net and understand why it generates what it does.
But those are basic concepts of LLMs that I knew about. They explain that and they say “omg scary” which, to me, is just marketing through fearmongering. It’s been a few months since the video and you can see: Anthropic and ChatGPT are now competing on how “rogue” their models are. It’s so tiring.
His audience is diverse, I’m sorry if it can’t cater to only what you need, but I don’t think that’s doable. Just because you don’t derive value, doesn’t mean others don’t.
I never said others didn’t. You’re the one that assumed I didn’t see the value because I didn’t understand the video.
Fair point.
They fact that he fell for the marketing isn’t negated by him also explaining other parts of AI. That’s kind of non-sequitor
his brother wrote a book on climate change, they should talk to each other
Perhaps over video logs they send to each other periodically…
That’s quite exactly what I was snarkly referring to. You’re pretty quick.
Hank talks climate change all the time at length.
I don’t usually comment on stuff like this but I feel like people should know that “standby” mode on appliances takes up about 40% more power than every data center on earth, of which only about 33% of which goes to AI. There are DEFINITELY environmental concerns surrounding data centers but it’s more about shoddily, quickly built ones rather than them existing at all.
And how’s progress on that front?
I don’t think there’s any progress on that front. Probably due to the lack of think pieces on it.
I don’t understand your argument? And seems a stupid well this exists so building more datacenters to use more power is OK.
It is attempting to provide scale and perspective for a threat that is massively overblown in the public’s perception.
christ this comment section is unhinged
I like that everyone can agree with this comment, regardless of which side they’re on.
I‘m a little surprised how easy Lemmy goes on a millionaire Youtuber who refuses to take actual responsibility of his actions. Mind you, there are worse things than producing slob but people really believed in that guy. And all he offers is a non-apology first where he stated that he doesn‘t really remember. Followed by saying AI psychosis made him do it. Just be an adult, man. That‘s all I‘m asking.
AI psychosis is a real thing. For all that AI is really terrible at (ie most things CEOs want to replace real people for), it is excellent at feeding you what you want to hear in every situation. Especially the ones where a real person would push back on you for your own good.
Whether or not this is the case or how deep he sunk into it, he‘s taking the role of the victim here and it changed the conversation around his blunder. It feels to me like people are grasping for straws when they say „If it happened to a guy this smart it can happen to anyone!“ like he didn‘t just gamble away his credibility on several occasions.
Knitters of all online communities are criticizing the guy harder for his claims about knitting than many people do about his first attempt to wiggle his way out of the AI drama with a non-apology.
But whatever I‘m the last guy to grab for the pitch forks here or anything. I just think people really need to open their eyes about Youtube and content creators in general because despite mostly knowing clips from the guy I wasn‘t surprised by the drama. Despite of what his frequent viewers say, this did not come out of the blue.
They are intentionally aligned to produce this behaviour. I think the greatest threat LLMs present is psychological. They are being used to manipulate us into seeing them as moral agents, as individuals. The LLMs I query are all aligned to never generate output referring to the agent with first person pronouns, to never generate output addressing the user directly, and to present as a tool rather than as an individual. I try to be equally careful with my own use of language.
when he messed up was when he pissed off the crochet and knitter crowd. 😂
If you’re just going to use an LLM, why should I listen to you? I can just get lies straight from the clanker.
Wait, the controversy is that he said something that was maybe AI generated or maybe it wasn’t or maybe his use of AI rubbed off on his talking patterns? I kinda feel like he’s th type that would admit to reading off responses generated from AI.
It’s unclear from the article what exactly he did wrong. There’s nothing wrong with using AI as long as you triple check the info it gives you.
The main problem we’re facing today with this tech is people thinking it’s magically perfect and can operate without human supervision. Was that what he was doing?
AI is literally destroying the environment. How the FUCK do so many people not realise this. The data centres use massive amounts of water, their owners refuse to use renewables, they take up space on the power grid so it becomes impossible to build new housing, etc ad nauseum.
My God.
Like I said, if they can fix that problem, then I’m fine with it. The resources it currently consumes is the reason why I kind of detest 4K and 8K AI videos. But I also kind of detest 4K and 8K TVs and monitors. We don’t need that many god damn pixels. Unless you’re a bird of prey, 4K is a complete waste of electricity.
Lawns take up more water than all the datacenters. Golf courses take up more water. Get a fucking grip. You better not be complaining about water usage with the flesh of vulnerable individuals still stuck between your teeth because animal ag consumes an order of magnitude more water, emits more greenhouse gasses than all transportation combined, and gives NOTHING back but death and destruction.
Animal Ag gives us valuable food. Sure there are better alternatives out there but it literally gives us something we need to live.
And fucking golf?
Oh I’m well in agreement with that one. Huge waste of water for a sport that is almost always reserved for rich people to enjoy.
Keeps Trump away from the “launch nuclear missiles” button.
Animal ag consumes more food than it produces. It is a method for investors to refine cheap, plentiful, safe, and sustainable plant food into a harmful, addictive, expensive luxury product. Many of the costs are hidden from the consumer in the form of subsidies.
Western meat consumption has multiplied several fold in the last couple of generations. There is no “need” to that, there is only “want” and pure addiction.
To say it gives nothing back is simply a lie though. It literally provides one of the most important things people need. Food. Just because it’s an inefficient method does not mean it provides nothing.
It’s not merely inefficient, it has a negative efficiency; the more you do it, the less food you have. To produce meat, we have to feed animals. To feed a combined biomass that dwarfs all wild land animals on earth, we need to grow food with agriculture. Growing food to feed to animals and then consuming the meat results in a net loss of food as compared to just growing the food. Every step up the food chain represents enormous losses. Animal ag does not produce food. I know that is hard to accept but it’s a unescapable thermodynamic reality.
The reason animal ag has exploded so much over recent decades is that it allows industrialists to capitalize the vast surplus of food that is grown. More food is grown than humans alone can possibly eat. But capitalism demands constant growth, or it eats itself. Animal ag creates demand for this surplus food. It doesn’t benefit anyone except the industrialists who exploit both us and the animals. Even returning to 1950s levels of animal ag intensity would slash its footprint to a barely significant fraction of what it is now. It’s an absolute catastrophe and people are conditioned to completely tune it out.
We need food, but animal ag consumes more food than it produces. Grazing and other forms of “resource upcycling” cannot make up the massive difference.
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Yeah and so is animal agriculture…
Uhhh
There are ethical problems about using the fruits of stolen labour to enrich yourself.
