Hank Green is pausing SMUSH and 4x3 after fans criticized his AI reliance. He's urging creators to write their own AI policies, even private ones.
Hank Green, the YouTube star behind Vlogbrothers, announced a personal AI policy on Friday, after apologizing to fans last week for "relying too heavily on AI."
In a video posted to Vlogbrothers, the channel he shares with his brother, the author John Green, he said the policy came out of a week of rethinking how he uses the tools. "This all started because I said I needed to realign the way I use LLMs," Green said. "I have thought a lot about that this week."
He laid out the policy as "The Hank Green AI Policy" and said he had been "so enticed by LLMs" that he used them to start and research many projects at once. "The more time I spent with it, the more every problem was starting to look like an LLM-shaped problem," he said. "And that's dumb."
"It doesn't even have to be public. Just have it. I wish I had had it," he said, urging other creators to draw up their own policies.
The video follows an apology he posted on Reddit last week after some fans criticized his use of AI. In that post, he said he would pause the daily word games SMUSH and 4x3 and post less on Hankschannel, his YouTube page.
Employees at Complexly, the nonprofit founded by the Green brothers that produces SciShow and CrashCourse, were also part of the apology. Complexly already had an AI policy, Green said, and he defended the work it produced.
"Whatever reputational hit or loss of trust I have brought upon myself here, that's mine to take and try to earn back," he said.
Green said he plans to slow down his content production and be more "choosy" about the opportunities he pursues. "Making more things does not make me make better things," he said. "And people need to be able to absolutely trust that my takes are my takes, which they are."
AlphaScala has examined the corporate side of AI accountability, including who bears liability when an AI system causes a breach, in AI Rogue Agents: Who Bears Liability for Breaches.
Green and Complexly did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
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