[00:00] So you've probably already heard Hank Green,&nbsp; the very successful and well-regarded internet&nbsp;&nbsp; science communicator, Hank Green got kind of&nbsp; caught by his audience relying a little too&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:13] heavily on generative AI to research and&nbsp; possibly even write some of his videos.&nbsp;&nbsp; I think this is a deal, but it's not a big deal,&nbsp; especially considering how Hank has handled the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:28] fallout and considering the reservoir of goodwill&nbsp; he has built with his audience over the years.&nbsp;&nbsp; I do think this incident offers an opportunity to&nbsp; examine how we are setting and enforcing editorial&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:45] standards within the fact-based media business&nbsp; online, especially in video form. What are the&nbsp;&nbsp; professional standards for doing the kind of&nbsp; work that Hank Green does, that I do? And how&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:00] do we re-professionalize journalism and other&nbsp; kinds of informational public communication as&nbsp;&nbsp; those businesses have reconstituted here on social&nbsp; video, or do we even want to re-professionalize&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:14] those fields? That is the main thing that I have&nbsp; written about for you today. But first, let's&nbsp;&nbsp; talk specifically about ChatGPT and the like. I do think that large language models have some&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:28] utility as research tools. They're not nearly&nbsp; useful enough to justify the massive catastrophic&nbsp;&nbsp; misallocation of capital into highly speculative&nbsp; AI businesses that will never make enough money&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:46] to return those investments. And the financial&nbsp; crime, the mendacity and/or the negligence that&nbsp;&nbsp; has inflated the AI bubble is a global scandal&nbsp; that will hurt all of us, especially here in the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:01] United States, where we have already spent a huge&nbsp; chunk of our national wealth on this last-ditch,&nbsp;&nbsp; hair-brained scheme to save our country&nbsp; from decline and eventual irrelevance,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:16] like the Darien scheme. Scotland, at the turn&nbsp; of the 18th century, invested a fifth of its&nbsp;&nbsp; national wealth to found an American colony in&nbsp; what is now Panama, thinking correctly that the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:34] Isthmus of Darien, the narrow point between&nbsp; the two American continents, that that would&nbsp;&nbsp; become a crucial choke point for global trade.&nbsp; They were right about that, but they were about&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:46] 200 years early, and they all died of malaria,&nbsp; and Scotland had to be absorbed by England with&nbsp;&nbsp; the Acts of Union to settle its debts. AI is the United States' Darien scheme,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:01] I fear, and large language models are not useful&nbsp; enough to justify all of that, but they can be&nbsp;&nbsp; useful for research. Sometimes I will wonder,&nbsp; hey, have any scientists studied how cooking&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:15] affects the pH of onions? And I'll go looking&nbsp; in the research literature, Google Scholar,&nbsp;&nbsp; et cetera, and sometimes I can't find anything.&nbsp; So I'll ask an LLM that has scraped the entire&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:29] internet, and sometimes the AI finds me a source&nbsp; that I missed. "Yes, cooking does lower the pH&nbsp;&nbsp; of onions," the chatbot will say to me, usually&nbsp; with much more confidence than is warranted by the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:46] actual findings it is referencing, and sometimes&nbsp; it outright mischaracterizes those findings,&nbsp;&nbsp; and often it cites sources that I do not regard&nbsp; as reliable. A post on Quora is not on the same&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:00] level as a peer-reviewed journal article. I have found LLMs useful as a means to find&nbsp;&nbsp; primary sources, but of course, that's really&nbsp; all they should be used for when we're talking&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:17] about researching the published record of all&nbsp; human knowledge. The LLM is a secondary source.&nbsp;&nbsp; It is at best a directory through which you can&nbsp; find primary sources of information, which is&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:34] the same lesson that everybody had to learn about&nbsp; Wikipedia, and it's the same lesson they taught&nbsp;&nbsp; us about Encyclopedia Britannica in the library&nbsp; at Park Forest Elementary School, circa 1992.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:50] In situations where accuracy really counts,&nbsp; you cannot rely on any secondary source. &nbsp; You must use it to go back to the primary source&nbsp; where the claim originated so that you can&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:06] scrutinize the reliability of that scientist or&nbsp; that eyewitness or whatever, and so you can give&nbsp;&nbsp; them credit for learning what they learned, or&nbsp; so you can make them accountable for being wrong&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:19] instead of you being held accountable, and so that&nbsp; you can prevent the inaccuracies that inevitably&nbsp;&nbsp; result when you make a copy of a copy of a copy&nbsp; of a copy. When a primary source is summarized by&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:31] a secondary source, and then another source&nbsp; summarizes the secondary source, and so on,&nbsp;&nbsp; the game of telephone like that always scrambles&nbsp; the details. All of these reasons and more are why&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:44] we always go back to primary sources when accuracy&nbsp; counts. And if someone is going back to primary&nbsp;&nbsp; sources, then I don't care whether they get there&nbsp; via Encyclopedia Britannica or Claude. Either is&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:00] fine. That's one obvious ethical principle for&nbsp; responsible LLM use that I am pretty sure about. &nbsp; Here's another thing that I'm still kind of&nbsp; kicking around in my head. I think it may be&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:17] my position that a professional communicator&nbsp; should not use AI for any routine writing&nbsp;&nbsp; purposes. If you're a professional communicator&nbsp; and you don't already have very strong feelings&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:36] about what you want to say and how you want to&nbsp; say it, then I don't think you have anything worth&nbsp;&nbsp; publishing. No one needs you to read a chatbot&nbsp; output for them. They can read it themselves,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:51] thank you very much. The only thing that I want to&nbsp; hear from you is what you have to say. And indeed,&nbsp;&nbsp; that is the only product of any potential value&nbsp; that you have to offer. Anything else is just&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:09] like slapping your brand onto a commodity.&nbsp; That's great work if you can get it, but it's&nbsp;&nbsp; not something that I would feel good about doing,&nbsp; and it's certainly not anything I want to buy. &nbsp;
[07:22] If you don't have strong feelings about what&nbsp; you want to say and how you want to say it,&nbsp;&nbsp; then you probably don't have anything of value&nbsp; to communicate, and asking the computer to write&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:36] something for you does nothing to address&nbsp; that core vacancy. I wrote the script that&nbsp;&nbsp; I'm reading right now myself because I know a&nbsp; lot about what I want to say. I wouldn't want&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:52] anybody else to write it for me, let alone a&nbsp; computer. Also, because the act of writing this&nbsp;&nbsp; helped me to work through my own thoughts.&nbsp; Writing equals thinking equals writing. If&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:08] you outsource your writing to a computer,&nbsp; you outsource your thinking to a computer. &nbsp; So my provisional position on LLM use by people&nbsp; in my general line of work is that it's fine if&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:26] you treat it like any other research tool&nbsp; to lead you to primary sources, but the LLM&nbsp;&nbsp; ought not fabricate any substantial amount of the&nbsp; stuff that you're selling, because that's like me&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:40] slapping a vinegar leg logo on generic brand&nbsp; jar sauce and then selling it back to you at&nbsp;&nbsp; a steep markup. That's what I think, and I think&nbsp; that's what Hank Green thinks. And may we all try&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:55] to live our lives in accordance with our beliefs&nbsp; a little bit more today than we did yesterday. &nbsp; Anyway, I'm wandering all over the place today,&nbsp; which is what you are able to do with Saily,&nbsp;&nbsp;
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[10:07] your travel plans, and be sure to save 15% with my&nbsp; coupon code, adamragusea, or just hit my link in&nbsp;&nbsp; the description, saily.com/adamragusea. And of&nbsp; course, there's the QR code there too that you&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:21] could scan. 15% off Saily data plans when you&nbsp; tell them that I sent you. Thank you, Saily. &nbsp; Anyway, the whole Hank Green thing got me&nbsp; thinking about my own mistakes and my own&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:34] little controversies as an ostensibly&nbsp; responsible informational social video&nbsp;&nbsp; creator. Does YouTube count as social video? I&nbsp; think it's an edge case, but I'm going to put&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:48] YouTube under the social video umbrella&nbsp; for the purposes of this discussion today.&nbsp;&nbsp; Many of the mistakes that I've made and that Hank&nbsp; Green has made, many of these mistakes could have&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:00] been caught before they went out the door. Many&nbsp; of these mistakes could have been addressed&nbsp;&nbsp; prior to publication by a more traditional,&nbsp; professional editorial process, the kind of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:14] process that used to be standard operating&nbsp; procedure in the fact-based media business. &nbsp; Really, I think the principal sin of my YouTube&nbsp; career is that I never really professionalized&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:31] this operation, even though I probably could&nbsp; have afforded to. I could have afforded to hire&nbsp;&nbsp; a professional script editor, maybe some&nbsp; food science grad student who also knows&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:45] something about good writing. Such people exist.&nbsp; I could have found one and paid them a salary.&nbsp;&nbsp; And I maybe could have had another layer&nbsp; of review with a freelance senior editor,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:00] somebody really seasoned who is in the consulting&nbsp; phase of their career, perhaps after getting laid&nbsp;&nbsp; off from a lofty position. Such people exist.&nbsp; I know many such people. I could have paid&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:13] such a person a flat fee to give me a final&nbsp; edit on everything that I have published. &nbsp; This would have cost a lot of the money that&nbsp; I've made on YouTube, like maybe even half&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:26] of the money, since I think I would need to pay&nbsp; that technical editor quite a lot to retain them.&nbsp;&nbsp; And if I did retain them, I think that they would&nbsp; end up wanting to get into the production side,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:38] the video editing side, eventually maybe&nbsp; being on camera, and that person would&nbsp;&nbsp; probably end up my partner in this business.&nbsp; And I don't want a partner for many reasons,&nbsp;&nbsp; but maybe too bad, buddy. Maybe that's just&nbsp; the cost of running a real grown up business. &nbsp;
[12:58] Here is the message in a bottle that I wish&nbsp; to send to future media historians. Some of&nbsp;&nbsp; us who are living through this early boom cycle&nbsp; of social video right now, some of us know that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:14] we're living in a Wild West period, a pre-1929&nbsp; stock market period, a period of really rapid&nbsp;&nbsp; business growth with a tumorous gold rush attached&nbsp; to it, and a period of vast, effective lawlessness&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:35] and normslessness. We're in the period where a&nbsp; technology-driven disruption of the mass media&nbsp;&nbsp; business has brought about the collapse&nbsp; of old systems of professional ethics,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:50] which legitimately need to be rethought and&nbsp; rewritten for this new world that we're in. &nbsp; But until we do that en masse as a community of&nbsp; professional media creators working on social&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:06] video, until we come together to develop and&nbsp; enforce new updated professional norms, until&nbsp;&nbsp; we respond to some collective crisis by pledging&nbsp; to endorse and to abide by a written code of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:24] professional ethics, until Mr. Beast finally does&nbsp; something so bad that costs him very dearly with&nbsp;&nbsp; his audience that he needs to be able to publicly&nbsp; endorse and commit himself to some written&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:38] professional code of ethics, until that particular&nbsp; exigency or one like it arises, we probably won't&nbsp;&nbsp; come together to build a professional community&nbsp; institution that would draft such a code of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:54] ethics, and put it to a vote by its members,&nbsp; and assign a standing ethics committee to&nbsp;&nbsp; review the ethics code with various layers and&nbsp; phases of community input, and to revise that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:09] ethics document every two years or something. Until we as YouTubers, as aspiringly responsible&nbsp;&nbsp; social video makers of all kinds, until we form&nbsp; a trade association for the same reasons that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:27] most other profitable industries have formed&nbsp; trade associations before us, until we do that,&nbsp;&nbsp; probably in response to some big crisis in&nbsp; trust, until we build that institution to draft&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:43] and maintain a professional code of ethics among&nbsp; other things to serve our professional community,&nbsp;&nbsp; until we found the International Association&nbsp; of Content Creators, and there is at least one&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:58] effort underway to create such a thing right&nbsp; now, until we professionalize like that, our&nbsp;&nbsp; industry is in a period of relative lawlessness&nbsp; and/or normslessness. And in such periods,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[16:19] you generally see some level of disinhibition. We can all get away with so much right now&nbsp;&nbsp; because the rules are still hazy at best, and bad&nbsp; actors are all around us and among us, setting&nbsp;&nbsp;
[16:40] the ethical floor for the social video business&nbsp; squarely on the seventh level of hell. I mean,&nbsp;&nbsp; how much more cynical and irresponsible could you&nbsp; get than the worst engagement bait content that's&nbsp;&nbsp;
[16:55] flooding the internet right now? Because&nbsp; that is our current business environment,&nbsp;&nbsp; it's easy for somebody like me to do the easier&nbsp; thing, which is to run a six-figure annual media&nbsp;&nbsp;
[17:12] business without employing or contracting&nbsp; with a single professional editor. Mind you,&nbsp;&nbsp; I'm not talking about a video footage editor.&nbsp; I'm talking about a content editor, a person&nbsp;&nbsp;
[17:27] who reviews the content for accuracy, for clarity&nbsp; and perhaps style, an editor who stakes their own&nbsp;&nbsp; professional reputation on the quality and the&nbsp; responsibility of the content that they edit. &nbsp;
[17:44] Most people who used to make a living&nbsp; writing or talking seriously about or&nbsp;&nbsp; photographing or otherwise documenting with&nbsp; media stuff that is happening in the world,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[17:58] most such people who did that for a living one&nbsp; single generation ago, most of them usually had&nbsp;&nbsp; professional editors overseeing and signing off on&nbsp; their work. A lot of us don't have that right now,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[18:16] many because they can't afford an editor, some&nbsp; of us because we're enjoying being relatively&nbsp;&nbsp; early to a raging party with the parents out&nbsp; of town for some undetermined amount of time.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[18:34] A lot of us are just still so happy to be free to&nbsp; write and say what we want without having to get&nbsp;&nbsp; daddy's permission, we're still so thrilled to be&nbsp; out on our own making it, making it kind of big,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[18:52] all without grownup supervision. At some point in this growth cycle,&nbsp;&nbsp; you have to admit that you have become the&nbsp; grownups, and standards will only exist if they&nbsp;&nbsp;
[19:10] are upheld by the grownups, because there's no&nbsp; one else to do it. That's what we call growing up,&nbsp;&nbsp; when you realize that there's no longer somebody&nbsp; else in the group in charge. It's either you and&nbsp;&nbsp;
[19:25] your group who's in charge or no one's in charge.&nbsp; We haven't matured that far as a community of&nbsp;&nbsp; responsible content creators. I haven't matured&nbsp; that far individually in the work that I do here. &nbsp;
[19:42] It should be said that some content creators&nbsp; have long explored these frontiers of&nbsp;&nbsp; professionalization or re-professionalization&nbsp; of the media business. The Green brothers&nbsp;&nbsp;
[19:54] have made so many quality responsible videos in&nbsp; collaboration with named, credited, professional&nbsp;&nbsp; content editors. And then, they've made some&nbsp; other things without as much editorial review.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[20:12] Hank Green made a thing or a few things&nbsp; that were not professionally up to snuff,&nbsp;&nbsp; and it's logical to speculate that these missteps&nbsp; could have been avoided or minimized with more&nbsp;&nbsp;
[20:26] layers of professional editorial review,&nbsp; like we used to have almost uniformly in&nbsp;&nbsp; the fact-based media business because the&nbsp; fact-based media business runs on trust. &nbsp;
[20:42] You don't have to trust all the content creators&nbsp; whose work you consume. Sometimes you just want&nbsp;&nbsp; to sit around and watch an amorally violent&nbsp; action movie, and sometimes you want to sit&nbsp;&nbsp;
[20:56] down and scroll shameless cynical brain rot on&nbsp; vertical social video. You don't need to trust&nbsp;&nbsp; the people who make that junk for you. But if&nbsp; you are consuming content where the people are&nbsp;&nbsp;
[21:10] talking about real things happening in the real&nbsp; world, you need to have some level of trust in&nbsp;&nbsp; that person who is talking or else you're not&nbsp; going to listen to them. If they're just making&nbsp;&nbsp;
[21:26] stuff up to maximize engagement, that has no value&nbsp; to you, so you probably won't consume it twice. &nbsp; In the world of media scholarship, we used to&nbsp; call such content fake news. Not slanted news,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[21:47] not biased news, not propagandistic news, but&nbsp; fake news, claims that people literally just&nbsp;&nbsp; make up and flood the internet with as part&nbsp; of some kind of low-margin cash grab scheme.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[22:03] That's what we used to mean by fake news. But&nbsp; then, in 2016, Donald Trump appropriated the&nbsp;&nbsp; term to describe news coverage that&nbsp; he perceived as unfavorable to him,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[22:15] and the term became useless to media scholars.&nbsp; I suggested calling it counterfeit news instead.&nbsp;&nbsp; Counterfeit, a product that is made to look like&nbsp; it has value, but in fact has no value at all,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[22:31] because if a piece of media that's about the real&nbsp; world isn't real, then there's nothing for you to&nbsp;&nbsp; learn from it, and so it is useless to you. This is a trust-based business that I'm in,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[22:46] that Hank Green is in, that a lot of us are in,&nbsp; and public trust is not binary. It's not something&nbsp;&nbsp; that you either have or don't have. You can have&nbsp; some trust, but not a lot. You can have a lot of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[23:03] trust, but then lose a little, et cetera. A public&nbsp; figure or prominent professional builds an account&nbsp;&nbsp; of trust with the public over time by doing&nbsp; quality, responsible, dependable work. The more&nbsp;&nbsp;
[23:24] good work you do, the more you prove yourself, the&nbsp; more trust that you accrue in your trust account. &nbsp; And when you do something that undermines&nbsp; the public's trust in you, as I have done,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[23:40] as I'm pretty sure everyone has done at&nbsp; least once to some degree, all have sinned,&nbsp;&nbsp; when you make a mistake of craft or a mistake&nbsp; of taste or a mistake of professional ethics&nbsp;&nbsp;
[23:55] or perhaps even a moral mistake, when you&nbsp; shake that bond of trust with your audience,&nbsp;&nbsp; your balance of trust in the bank goes down. But&nbsp; it goes down in an amount roughly proportionate&nbsp;&nbsp;
[24:15] to the public's perception of the severity of&nbsp; your offense against them, and that outflow of&nbsp;&nbsp; trust is debited against the balance of&nbsp; trust that you have previously built up,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[24:31] which may be a considerable sum, perhaps&nbsp; a sum that dwarves the debt incurred. &nbsp; I think that is what generally happens and&nbsp; what should happen and what will happen when&nbsp;&nbsp;
[24:47] a public figure errs, as we all have to widely&nbsp; varying degrees. My point being, some have tried,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[24:59] are trying, will probably try soon to do more&nbsp; professional work on the internet. And I'm&nbsp;&nbsp; not going to attempt to define professional media&nbsp; work here, but I think that one obvious element of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[25:15] professionalism in fact-based media is some layer&nbsp; of editorial review. That is, I'm pretty sure, one&nbsp;&nbsp;
[25:27] of some debatable, hazy cloud of attributes that&nbsp; would naturally define professionalism in media. &nbsp; There are some trying to reprofessionalize the&nbsp; fact-based media business that lives here on these&nbsp;&nbsp;
[25:42] internet shores, where some lucky few of us washed&nbsp; up and colonized and thrived with some combination&nbsp;&nbsp; of skill, moxie, dumb luck, and cynicism. That&nbsp; fact-based, trust-based media business that lives&nbsp;&nbsp;
[26:01] on in some mutated, evolutionarily-bottlenecked&nbsp; state here on the internet. There are some people&nbsp;&nbsp; who've tried or are trying to professionalize&nbsp; that media business, which I happen to be&nbsp;&nbsp;
[26:15] in. But I'm not really one of them, am I? If I think that professional, supervisory,&nbsp;&nbsp; and to some extent, adversarial editing from&nbsp; a professional editor, if I think that is some&nbsp;&nbsp;
[26:33] basic element of a professional code of ethics&nbsp; that should exist and may one day exist as a&nbsp;&nbsp; commitment that one must make, at least implicitly&nbsp; for access to some segment of the media market,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[26:48] if I think getting an edit is a necessary&nbsp; condition of professionalism in the fact-based&nbsp;&nbsp; media business, then why don't I hire an editor?&nbsp; I could afford one. I couldn't pay as much as&nbsp;&nbsp;
[27:05] I maybe could have justified during my peak&nbsp; earning years. COVID, basically. I couldn't&nbsp;&nbsp; pay as much anymore, but I could still&nbsp; pay a fair market rate to a professional&nbsp;&nbsp; editor on a consulting basis, freelance. But I don't because I really don't want to,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[27:25] because I'm still enjoying being free, because I&nbsp; don't work well with other people, at least not&nbsp;&nbsp; on the project level, because I work odd hours&nbsp; and I usually work right up against my deadline,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[27:39] in part so that my channel can be&nbsp; more responsive to current events.&nbsp;&nbsp; And yeah, I don't want to hire an editor because&nbsp; I don't want to share the money. Even though I do&nbsp;&nbsp;
[27:53] have more than I need right now, I'm too worried&nbsp; that it's all going to collapse one day, and I'm&nbsp;&nbsp; still kind of hoarding treasure to bury and dig&nbsp; up if and when my fortunes inevitably reverse.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[28:07] And right now, I can get away with not having an&nbsp; editor because my audience does not demand it, and&nbsp;&nbsp; I'm not a member of any professional association&nbsp; that recommends it, and the legal system has not&nbsp;&nbsp;
[28:22] yet prompted me to institute an editorial review&nbsp; process, which would help me to demonstrate to&nbsp;&nbsp; the court that I did my due diligence in,&nbsp; for example, a defamation suit against me. &nbsp;
[28:36] That's part of the reason why the old fact-based&nbsp; media had editors, because they reported&nbsp;&nbsp; unflattering things about real people, and they&nbsp; occasionally got things wrong. And you're more&nbsp;&nbsp;
[28:48] likely to lose a defamation suit against you&nbsp; if it seems like you've been reckless with the&nbsp;&nbsp; truth. If you can show that you have editors who&nbsp; are at least theoretically enforcing some written&nbsp;&nbsp;
[29:01] code of ethics, even if that process occasionally&nbsp; produces an inaccurate result, if you can show&nbsp;&nbsp; that you have a process, that can improve your&nbsp; position in a legal dispute about your content. &nbsp;
[29:16] That hasn't happened to the likes of me&nbsp; yet on the internet, probably because&nbsp;&nbsp; we online-content-creating micro celebrities&nbsp; represent a wide field of small legal targets&nbsp;&nbsp;
[29:30] as opposed to one big, juicy legal target that you&nbsp; can sue, like The New York Times or whatever. That&nbsp;&nbsp; practical legal reality is probably another reason&nbsp; why someone like me hasn't professionalized,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[29:45] and why someone like Hank Green has kind&nbsp; of semi-professionalized. Some of the work&nbsp;&nbsp; he publishes has serious editorial review,&nbsp; and some of it seems to be stuff that he's&nbsp;&nbsp;
[29:57] just kind of dumping from his brain straight&nbsp; to the internet, the way that I usually do. &nbsp; And there's one more reason. I, for one, still&nbsp; wonder if we will actually need as much editorial&nbsp;&nbsp;
[30:12] supervision in new media as we had in old media,&nbsp; because editorial supervision is not an end unto&nbsp;&nbsp; itself. The function of editorial review is to be&nbsp; a self-correcting mechanism within the fact-based&nbsp;&nbsp;
[30:31] media business. That function can be performed&nbsp; in different ways by different people. It may&nbsp;&nbsp; not be adequate, but the comments do represent&nbsp; a self-correcting mechanism in the online media&nbsp;&nbsp;
[30:47] business. Rapid, voluminous, public audience&nbsp; feedback has demonstrated some efficacy as a&nbsp;&nbsp; quality control instrument in new media. When&nbsp; I'm out there on the internet and I see someone&nbsp;&nbsp;
[31:05] making a claim that I'm pretty sure is hogwash,&nbsp; there's usually at least one or two top comments&nbsp;&nbsp; pushing back on it, including on my own videos. Rideshare drivers don't need a professional&nbsp;&nbsp;
[31:19] association to enforce standards within their&nbsp; industry. They need a union to represent their&nbsp;&nbsp; interests in disputes with rideshare companies&nbsp; who are profiting handsomely off of their labor,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[31:33] but rideshare drivers do not need a professional&nbsp; association to set and enforce norms because the&nbsp;&nbsp; rating system takes care of that. Good drivers&nbsp; get good ratings from their riders and bad drivers&nbsp;&nbsp;
[31:48] get bad ratings, and you can see the rating when&nbsp; you choose to accept a driver or not. It's not a&nbsp;&nbsp; perfect system. It can be abused. But so far,&nbsp; it seems to be working pretty well, I think. &nbsp;
[32:05] We don't need editors for the sake of having&nbsp; editors. We need accountability. And the internet&nbsp;&nbsp; does bring some measure of accountability to the&nbsp; people like me and Hank Green who do business&nbsp;&nbsp;
[32:20] here, through comments and Reddit threads and the&nbsp; controversy sections in our Wikipedia bios, all of&nbsp;&nbsp; that. The question is whether that accountability&nbsp; is enough, and how do you define enough? Enough&nbsp;&nbsp;
[32:39] for what? Well, enough accountability to maintain&nbsp; the level of trust necessary to have a successful&nbsp;&nbsp; fact-based media business on the internet. That&nbsp; is the cold economic answer to the question, and&nbsp;&nbsp;
[32:58] I guess we're going to see what the answer is. For myself, I'm not ready to commit to hiring a&nbsp;&nbsp; script editor to review the accuracy and taste&nbsp; and style of all my work here before I publish&nbsp;&nbsp;
[33:13] it. Maybe one day, something will happen where&nbsp; you demand that of me, but that is not today,&nbsp;&nbsp; probably. I'm semi-retired. I'm old&nbsp; and tired. Overtired for my age,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[33:31] honestly. Maybe it's not the years, honey, it's&nbsp; the mileage. And I'm honestly not interested in&nbsp;&nbsp; doing my best work most of the time anymore.&nbsp; I don't want to half-ass anything, but I do&nbsp;&nbsp;
[33:46] occasionally quarter-ass some jobs. Sometimes I&nbsp; just tell you what I suspect to be true instead&nbsp;&nbsp; of calling up a bunch of experts and telling&nbsp; you what they think is true, which would be a&nbsp;&nbsp;
[34:00] more valuable service for me to provide to you. Frequently, these days, I take the shortcut and&nbsp;&nbsp; I just tell you what I reckon is going on with&nbsp; some news story or with some science question,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[34:14] which is a debit to my trust account, but I&nbsp; make a little bit back by being transparent&nbsp;&nbsp; about it. I'm honest and upfront about the fact&nbsp; that I'm old and tired and a little lazy at this&nbsp;&nbsp;
[34:31] point in my career, at least when it comes to&nbsp; relatively inconsequential topic areas. I'm&nbsp;&nbsp; very careful to cite my sources, even when the&nbsp; source is just my own intuition, especially when&nbsp;&nbsp;
[34:45] the source is just my own intuition. I make an effort to tell you that,&nbsp;&nbsp; to explicitly distinguish between things that I&nbsp; think are true and things that are proven true,&nbsp;&nbsp; or things that are widely believed by experts&nbsp; to be true, or things that are believed by some&nbsp;&nbsp;
[35:03] particular expert to be true, but not by others,&nbsp; et cetera. I'm pretty good, I think, about&nbsp;&nbsp; explaining my epistemology as I go, and I think&nbsp; that earns me back a little bit of the trust that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[35:18] I lose, so that when I quarter-ass a job, it's&nbsp; effectively like I'm one-eighth-assing the job on&nbsp;&nbsp;
[35:30] the adjusted trust index, and that is apparently&nbsp; good enough for you. You're still here for now. &nbsp;
[35:43] We'll see what levels of professionalism&nbsp; are necessary to thrive in this market in&nbsp;&nbsp; the coming years. And of course, we need not look&nbsp; at this through the dehumanizing economic lens,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[35:57] where we're all just rats in a changing maze&nbsp; responding to the dynamics of the maze according&nbsp;&nbsp; to broadly predictable behavior patterns. That&nbsp; is the economic lens, if I were to describe&nbsp;&nbsp;
[36:11] it uncharitably. If we look at this through a&nbsp; humanistic lens, we can say that people have free&nbsp;&nbsp; will, people have power, and they can choose to&nbsp; exercise that power to try to get what they want. &nbsp;
[36:28] If you want more better fact-based content on the&nbsp; internet, regardless of what that market seems to&nbsp;&nbsp; want economically, well then form an association.&nbsp; Yes, institutions and norms are collapsing all&nbsp;&nbsp;
[36:49] around you right now, that's the scary part.&nbsp; But the exciting part is that you get to try&nbsp;&nbsp; to rebuild. Maybe Gen Z will be great institution&nbsp; builders, like the World War generation was. Maybe&nbsp;&nbsp;
[37:07] Gen Z's annoying incessant moralism is a very&nbsp; natural response to the amorality and the outright&nbsp;&nbsp; immorality that they see being practiced and&nbsp; rewarded at the highest levels of society today.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[37:27] It is past time for a moral correction. Maybe&nbsp; that is the task that Gen Z has inherited. &nbsp; Moral corrections generally require institution&nbsp; building, and you don't have to ask anybody's&nbsp;&nbsp;
[37:46] permission to build institutions. Do you have&nbsp; two like-minded friends? Well, congratulations.&nbsp;&nbsp; You have already formed the society for&nbsp; the advancement of whatever it is that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[37:58] you three care about. Maybe think about&nbsp; making it a legal entity at some point,&nbsp;&nbsp; like a nonprofit or something. If you can't&nbsp; figure out how to do that, you can hire a lawyer.&nbsp;&nbsp; They usually help you to incorporate for cheap,&nbsp; like as a loss-leader for future business that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[38:16] they may get out of you for being counsel to the&nbsp; society for the advancement of whatever it is. &nbsp; There have been efforts to organize online&nbsp; video content creators before. There are&nbsp;&nbsp;
[38:31] efforts underway now, and hopefully one of them&nbsp; will catch at some point. At the very least,&nbsp;&nbsp; we need a professional association to&nbsp; represent our interests with the platforms,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[38:45] with the YouTubes and the TikToks that we are&nbsp; making rich without having a clear and fair&nbsp;&nbsp; system of rights and expectations to mediate&nbsp; disputes between creators and platforms.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[38:59] I'm too old and tired, but you young people should&nbsp; choose to participate in that institution-building&nbsp;&nbsp; process, and if you want the creators that&nbsp; you consume to be held to a higher standard,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[39:14] agitate for it. Institutions are usually formed to&nbsp; placate the mob, so make yourself hard to placate,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[39:26] and you'll probably get more of what you want&nbsp; from me, from Hank Green, from politicians,&nbsp;&nbsp; from business execs, from anybody. Squeaky&nbsp; wheel gets the grease. Talk to you next time.