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Hank Green, a novelist, comedian, and YouTuber with 3.2 million subscribers<\/a>, recently apologized to his audience for his growing reliance on AI chatbots.<\/p>\n The controversy<\/a> started when, in the middle of a video posted on the educational channel Complexly<\/a>, Green incongruously used the phrase \u201cI appreciate the pushback,\u201d leading viewers to speculate that he\u2019d written the script with a chatbot \u2014 and, in the process, accidentally included its response to one of his prompts.<\/p>\n In a since-deleted post on X, Green acknowledged that he\u2019d produced the video \u201cunder a ton of pressure\u201d and used ChatGPT \u201cfor research on this script.\u201d At the same time, he said the \u201cpushback\u201d line was actually a response to the episode\u2019s guest.\u00a0<\/p>\n Green then offered a more in-depth apology<\/a> on Reddit, where he said he was \u201cmortified\u201d that he\u2019d \u201clet so many people down\u201d and that he plans to reduce his video production as a result.<\/p>\n Green insisted that he\u2019s only used ChatGPT to \u201clocate papers and other resources for learning about topics,\u201d and that the words and the \u201ctakes\u201d have still been his. At the same time, he admitted it was fair to criticize him for \u201cdiluting\u201d himself.<\/p>\n He also clarified that he\u2019s \u201cnot a pure AI-hater,\u201d while also listing a number of concerns about the technology, including its impact on climate change and \u201cthe speed at which these companies are trying to consolidate economic power.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, what I am most scared of is ruining myself for people, but I have not been managing my impulses well,\u201d he said. \u201cYou need to know that my words are mine. I don\u2019t think that this hasn\u2019t been true, but I\u2019ve been moving so fast that my own process isn\u2019t actually clear to me and I want to have it be a guarantee moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n It sounds like Green is going to take some time to figure out how to make that guarantee a reality. In the meantime, he\u2019ll be pausing or posting less frequently to his various YouTube channels. Green said he wants to do more work like a recent meditative video<\/a> \u201cwhere the writing was the whole thing and I felt it all the way down.\u201d Green also said he\u2019ll probably make more videos with his \u201cdumb unscripted straight to camera thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cBut mostly I need to come to terms with the fact that the level of dopamine I\u2019ve been getting from interacting with LLMs\u2026with doing more and more and more and more\u2026is not healthy for me or good for the world,\u201d Green said. \u201cIt is careless, and has disconnected me from where people are on this.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n