I was first introduced to Hank Green via The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, an utterly delightful artifact of the pre-terrible Internet that I absolutely fell in love with at the time. (I have a bit of a fondness for Pride and Prejudice for reasons that should be obvious if you think about it).
At the time I was definitely not into vloggers or, in general, people talking directly to camera who made up for not being very good at talking to camera with tonnes of quick edits. That changed, tho, as we entered The Quarantine Years and I got a bit more desperate for human connection, however artificial.
(And, of course, as anyone would after doing it every week for almost 20 years, he's a lot better at talking to camera these days).
I was entirely aware that Hank was using LLMs to program those games. I'm sure he said as much. And, I mean, I love making things with code. Part of what I see as the promise of LLMs is they make programming—that is, making the computer do things for you—accessible to non-programmers. That's kind of great. Much as I worry about de-skilling and the de-valuing of my profession, I've tried to teach people how to program. I'm not a great teacher, but programming is an incredibly difficult skill to teach. I think everybody should be able to make their computers do the things they want them to do. My frustration with the computer industry in the last decade or two is that that seems to have no value to people selling—or maybe even buying—computers. And maybe normal people realizing that they can actually write software (or, okay, have software written for them by a machine), will convince them that being able to write software for your own computer ought to be a right, not a privilege granted to them by the gods of Apple or Microsoft.
But I digress.
Anyway, people got mad at Hank because he was using LLMs. Actually the thing that tipped them off, I guess, was an LLM-generated infographic. Which, yeah, wasn't great. And I guess he actually said, out loud, "I appreciate the pushback" in an AHA episode entitled "Does Hank Green Shave His Butt". This is something popular LLMs will say to you if you start arguing with them. (Don't argue with an LLM. There's no point. You're just training it to give you wrong answers).
I'm quite inclined to give Hank grace. I don't want to watch videos generated by LLMs. I don't think Hank's videos are generated by LLMs. But, like he says, he got sucked into LLMs, which I think is a real danger for people.
Hank is a deeply fascinating person, which, I think, is why I keep being attracted to the stuff he makes. But he's not a faultless superhuman or anything. He also doesn't need me defending him or anything. He'll be okay.
And he's been on the Internet for a long time. He knows how this goes. He spent time away from the Internet. He's back a bit now, following his own rules. Right after the whole thing went down I happened to listen to this January episode of Dear Hank and John talking about that time 12 years ago John Green made people on Tumblr angry at him. Here, Hank gives John the advice he's following now. And also talks about his own struggles with this sort of Internet nonsense. And, in other episodes of that podcast, he frequently talks about his struggles with needing to do so much, and his brother chides him for doing too much. And LLMs. But in a kind, supportive way.
I think if you want to take anything from this, it's maybe the value of having a support network to navigate life's turmoils. He'll be okay.
If you're at all familiar with his blog, or have seen him talk on the subject, nothing in the book will come as a huge surprise. I think what's remarkable about it, tho, is the clarity of the construction. The anecdotes and examples in the book are stories he is often repeating, but they do come together as a coherent, convincing argument about how to confront the AI bubble.
I'd been kind of mulling how to talk about LLMs and related technologies in public for a while now. It's not easy. I'm professionally required to cultivate a pretty sizable amount of enthusiasm for the technology. On the other hand, quite a few friends and online communities talk about it like it's the Great Satan.
I feel much more aligned with Cory's take on things. There is actually something useful here. I hate the billionaire-fueled con job inflating the bubble to utterly preposterous proportions. A data centre boom in the middle of a decidedly laissez-faire regulatory environment means these dumbasses are building out gas turbines instead of being forced to power these things with renewables, which might actually end up helping with the climate emergency. Everything about the bubble economics of this thing is stupid and terrible and is making me incredibly anxious for a variety of reasons.
But there is a there there. This technology is going to have a pretty profound effect on my profession, if nothing else. I'm not going to pretend I can tell you what it will be. This isn't LinkedIn. But it's also interesting.
I've been somewhat fortunate that I've been able to take the centaur role with LLMs. I can use them or (mostly) not use them as I see fit. (My actual work revolves around LLMs, so avoiding them would be a bit silly, but my actual process is mine to develop). I mostly write the code myself, chatting with the coding agent if I get stuck (rubber duck style). Then I get the agent to do a code review and did-I-miss-anything verification with Jira before sending it off to the team to review. And I feel way more productive for it.
I think this is the way to do it. I need to understand the code that has my name on it, and the best way to do that is to write it. Writing code isn't that hard when you've been doing it for a while. I find myself beating my head on the desk a lot less, because the agents are good enough now that they can spot errors I'd have spent hours debugging in the past. So all good, right?
I am, of course, more than a little anxious about where all this is going. As Cory cites Stein's Law, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." And this bubble can't go on forever.
Okay, I'm a little late actually writing this. I did actually start the post on Canada Day, because it was honestly pretty exciting. Blog posts do take a bit of mental bandwidth, tho, even when I'm trying to convince myself to dash them off like it's 2004 again. I'm giving myself a bit of grace, tho, since this is my 11th blog post this year, a number of posts this blog hasn't seen since 2013. And I've still got nearly half the year to go.
This is a bit weird for me. But I can't help but feel excited. I've gotten more and more into the contest since I started watching it when it was on OMNI in 2018 or whatever. When the budget item to "explore participation in Eurovision" was put forward last year, I honestly didn't expect it to go anywhere. Like maybe CBC would air it and send hosts, like Australian broadcaster SBS had been doing since the 80s. Do that for a few years, build the audience and then maybe see about getting special permission to join, like Australia did.
But nope! CBC full-on joined the EBU, giving it the right to participate (and also giving it access to the member news content, which is arguably more important). And then Mark Carney's all like "We're going to Bulgaria, baby!"
It's a weird world.
I am honestly looking forward to being in the fandom as a member of a participating nation. I put my name down at Canadian Fans of Eurovision and I'm enjoying the anticipatory fandom feelings. Of course, this isn't my first rodeo, but these things can be fun and I'll enjoy it while it lasts.
I'm also enjoying the speculation from Eurovision fans about who we might send, and discovering some cool new artists in the process. (I'm less enjoying Canadians' speculation, because people have no idea how this actually works, but I want to stay positive here). I'm filled with a mix of excitement and dread at what the CBC might come up with for a national final, because I think it'll also expose me to music I haven't been exposed to before and I think it'll be fun, even if we pick someone terrible and they bomb out in the semis.
