Hank Green: What No One Tells You About the Algorithm

Hank Green is one of the most beloved science creators on the interwebs. He’s been making videos for almost 20 years, spanning LOTS of eras of the Internet, from YouTube prank videos to TikTok dance challenges to AI slop. In this episode, Wendy sits down with Hank to talk about this wild ride. They reminisce about his path to YouTube stardom, and they’ll pull back the curtain on social media algorithms — how they’ve changed, and the sneaky ways they draw us in. And while Hank has been publicly fighting off internet trolls, he’s also been dealing with his own personal battle with cancer. He takes us through what’s changed for him since he got diagnosed, and the science he learned about pee and chemotherapy along the way. Find our transcript here: https://tinyurl.com/ScienceVsHankGreen In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Hank Green’s journey to YouTube (06:26) How ‘going viral’ has completely changed (11:58) How social media captures your attention (23:47) What Hank is and isn’t worried about with AI (29:33) Hank’s cancer diagnosis (37:45) The fracturing of communication (40:46) Oddball questions Credits This episode was produced by Wendy Zukerman and Ekedi Fausther-Keeys, with help from Michelle Dang, Rose Rimler, and Meryl Horn. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Wendy Zukerman is the executive producer. Video editing and sound mix by Bobby Lord. Music written by Bumi Hidaka, Peter Leonard, Emma Munger and Bobby Lord. Thanks to the Humdinger Studios in Melbourne, and Wolf Island Studios in New York City. Science Vs is a Spotify Studios Original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications. You can also find us on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  10 years I've been trying to figure out how to do science on whether butt hair prevents chafing, and I still haven't gotten it done.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Because when you had chemo, you lost your butt hair.

• 0:12Speaker 00

  It's true. Yeah, yeah, it was great. Way preferable to the alternative, I have to say.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Did it, did you have any less chafing?

• 0:21Speaker 00

  Well, I wouldn't know. I wasn't jogging.

• 0:26Speaker 02

  Do, do, do, science chats with our favorite nerds.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Hi, I'm Wendy Zukerman, and this is Science Versus. Today on the show, Hank Green. Hank is one of the OG science YouTubers. He has been doing it for almost 20 years, racking up millions of followers, bazillions of views, as he talks about the weird and wonderful world of science. And Hank has had this remarkable front row seat into the internet as it's morphed from this curious, exciting new thing to the cesspool of AI slop that it is today. And by making viral content for all this time, nearly two decades, he has been able to see how the algorithm has changed

• 1:19Speaker 01

  and what it takes to make a viral video these days. So in our chat, we talk about what people tend to misunderstand about the algorithm. And we're going to talk about big stuff, like where AI is heading and will a computer ever suffer? Plus, a few years ago, Hank was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma and became his own science experiment, learning many things about his body and cancer, including why chemo can make your pee cloudy. And it is a surprisingly inspirational science story. So my chat with Hank Green is coming up just after the break.

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• 4:09Speaker 01

  Today, we are talking to the one and only Hank Green. Hello, welcome to the show.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  As far as I know, it's just me.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  So before you were a YouTuber, you worked at a fungicide company.

• 4:23Speaker 00

  I did, yeah, correct.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Was it fungicide?

• 4:27Speaker 00

  No. Oh, no.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  No.

• 4:32Speaker 00

  It was a really weird job because I was the only person in the lab. So there's a lot of managing supplies. But then in addition to that, there was nobody else in the building. Like, it was just me and fungicide and liquid nitrogen, four armadillos, out the back door, a bunch of wasps, and a lot of produce.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  So you and the armadillos not having the best time of your life.

• 4:57Speaker 00

  No, yeah, pretty bored. It was weird because I'd been in college for four years and I'd been socializing all of the time. And then it was just like back to my parents' house, long commute, by myself in a building, yeah.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  So then in 2007, you see a little baby website called YouTube.

• 5:17Speaker 00

  Many, many years went by, by the way. I went to grad school and a bunch of other stuff happened. But yes, I saw this little website called YouTube.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  The site itself was pretty crappy in 2007.

• 5:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, and in fact, like our biggest inspiration, Zay Frank, he hosted everything on his own. He just uploaded QuickTime files to his server and paid the bills. And he got people, like, he like crowdfunded money so that he could stream on his own website. And that is how the biggest video blog project that had ever existed happened in 2006.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  It's crazy, it's crazy, it's crazy. So what made you think, I want to be on this?

• 5:59Speaker 00

  It was John, mostly.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Your brother?

• 6:02Speaker 00

  My brother John was obsessed with a couple of these video blog projects. And I am three years younger than him, and it took me 40 years of my life before I was willing to accept that there might be something that he thought was cool that wasn't extremely cool. You know, like, just like that kind of like younger brother vibe where if John liked a band, that's because that band was the best band. And if he liked online video, that's because online video was the best thing, which was amazing for me because I'd never questioned it. I just was like, I am in all the way. And I was in all the way and remain in all the way.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  So I thought we could watch your very first

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Oh, no.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  video from 2007.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  This is Science Versus, this isn't YouTuber Versus.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  We'll get to that. We'll get to the weird science.

• 6:51Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  But first, trip down memory lane. Okay, there it is, there it is, okay.

• 6:58Speaker 00

  Hey, John.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  I guess you've heard by now,

• 7:03Speaker 00

  auto-power off. Still some glitches to work out. Hello, John. By now, you have received my message that we will no longer be communicating through any textual means. No more instant messaging, no more emailing, only video blogging. I've learned a lot.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Now that I know the background, it really does have little brother energy.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  When you do think about kind of where YouTube and the broader internet is today, and you've watched that kind of beautiful dinky video, what does it make you think of?

• 7:34Speaker 00

  It really makes me want to re-edit it. And then there's also the piece where I feel quite strongly that we never could have made it

• 7:46Speaker 00

  if we weren't starting at the very beginning. And that the quality of a person's first video now has to be so, like, so much higher. Like, it has to be, has to be much more written. It has to be much more charismatic. They're like, there's nothing charismatic about that, poor child. But I, it's just gotten, there's so much value in being a YouTuber that was not there then. And that's great, but at the same time, it means that, like,

• 8:19Speaker 00

  you don't get to have it happen unless you're really hungry for it, which we weren't that hungry for it. We were just messing around.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Your very first viral video was Aseo Deathly Hallows.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  Correct. Oh, Aseo, Deathly Hallows, incendio. Book sales and bargains, it'll be like Phoenix, tears on a broken nose.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  So when you think of what makes a video go viral back then versus now?

• 8:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, so the big difference now is that it used to be that virality was like a contagion, which is why it was called that. Whereas like, I saw this and so I'm going to share it and with five people, and then those five people are going to share it with five people. And it is, it is a cultural contagion. And that doesn't happen anymore.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:07Speaker 00

  That is no longer how virality happens. Virality happens entirely through recommendation algorithms. And so that's the big difference. And so that does, to some extent, mean that you are playing a different game. Everyone has already seen 20,000 videos this week. They're going to see 20,000 more by the end of the week. And the recommendation algorithms are sort of trying to find the thing that is holding on to people's attention the most, getting the most clicks. There's like a viral YouTube video that's been, you know, slow burning for the last six years of a high school band playing a Weezer song. And they start playing, and the moment the first singer's about to sing the first line, the keyboard stand collapses.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  And everybody in the auditorium was just like perfectly silent.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Okay, but then that's the beautiful morality.

• 10:05Speaker 00

  That's just like a regular viral video, but like most of what is happening.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:10Speaker 00

  Is people telling a story that is trying to capture and hold your attention.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:17Speaker 00

  And also on YouTube, trying to put it inside of some kind of frame that will, you know, be like, oh, I kind of actually had like, I feel like I need this information. And a lot of times that information comes in the form of a threat. So if I like made a video that was called like, here's why you can't trust the AI companies. People would watch that because it's like, ooh, a threat. Like I, you're like, I want to know, like, why can't I? Hank, Hank has some thoughts about why I can't trust the AI companies.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:46Speaker 00

  And it's all very salient. It's very of the moment. And so that, that's like a title that I would have if I wanted to get a couple of million views and then I'd interview an AI safety researcher and it would be extra long, which is also something that YouTube now rewards and.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Have you ever used one of these tricks and then just felt real bad about yourself?

• 11:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's this thing in SciShow that we call, or that I call a head lie. So it's a headline that is a lie until you watch the video. And you want to be careful with these. So sometimes this is okay. Like sometimes it's fine. Like we did a video recently that was called like, everyone on earth has the same commute. And the video was about the fact that like, like everywhere, no matter where you look in the Himalayas or in South America or in Texas, there's this, there's like an average commute time and it's like 47 minutes. It's very strange, but like if you took that, that headline seriously, you'd be like, well, I guess everybody, like the person who lives five minutes away from work and

• 11:49Speaker 00

  a person who lives 45 minutes away from work have the same commute time. I'm not worried about that one because you don't think that. You don't, you're not like, you're like, you are confronted with.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  The stakes are low. Yes.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  But there are also times when I have written a headline where it's like, if somebody just saw that headline and they didn't watch the video, they, and that's most people who read the headline, most people aren't going to click. They're going to walk away with an incorrect idea in their head. And we like, you know, like sometimes I'm like, but it don't get more views.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  What's an example?

• 12:23Speaker 00

  I can't, I, there was like, it was something about a bee. Wendy, I'm sorry. It was something about a bee and I can't remember what it was.

• 12:33Speaker 00

  I'll give you, I'll give you another example, which is recently, John made a video where he went and like toured some facilities where they're testing people for tuberculosis and trying like, like doing a bunch of work to help people know when they get have tuberculosis, make sure they know what kind they have, treat them, because the treatment's different depending on, on the strain of TB you have. And, and he put this video out and it was getting like no views, which of course, you know, like that's just not like a super sexy topic for the average American.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  TB is hard. Yes.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and so I changed the title to Elon Musk canceled this, we're doing it anyway. Which I feel a little bad about.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Did Elon Musk say anything about tuberculosis?

• 13:23Speaker 00

  Oh, no, I mean, he canceled all of USAID, like.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, okay, right.

• 13:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  And it was connected to USAID. Okay. So it was true.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  It was true. Yeah, it was, it was true. And like, and like it took a lot of work to get the money together to fill the gaps to, to make it happen.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  But like, it's a little bit like, I, like, this is a story of humans doing an amazing thing and I hate that I have to frame it inside of like, you hate this guy and so watch, like hate watch this content.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Yes. Did it work though?

• 13:53Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Okay. You know, yes.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was, it was one of our biggest videos of the month.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Okay. Wow. All right. So you talked about how you are worried that these platforms, social media, YouTube,

• 14:09Speaker 01

  are really optimized for making money.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, I would even not, I, I would say that they're optimized for keeping you on the site even. It's, it's just like, they know that if they get more of you, then they will eventually get more money. And that's like, that's the surrogate that they optimize for more than anything is like having you not close the app.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  What is something that people misunderstand about these algorithms?

• 14:35Speaker 00

  Oh, that they have, that, that like, you are in control of them, I think is a big one. Like people, there's this phrase, when you see a TikTok or a reel that's just like really, like exact, like something very weird that nonetheless you are extremely into.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  I built this feed brick by brick.

• 14:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Tell me how you feel about, explain this concept first.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  So the concept is, is like you give the algorithm your choices. You say like, I'm going to watch this one and I'm going to not watch this one. I'm going to heart this one and I'm going to comment on this one and I'm going to scroll past this one super fit, fast. And, and that's how, that's, that is how the recommendation algorithms, like every, every input they have is a human decision, but they are not really conscious human decisions anymore. Whereas they used to be, it used to be like, did you click on this video? You know, did you make that choice? Did you like this video? Did you comment on this video?

• 15:40Speaker 00

  And did you dislike this video? So you have those like, like decision points, whereas these modern swipeable feeds are like by far the, the most important data point is whether you keep watching the video and for how long.

• 15:57Speaker 00

  And.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  And so these imperceptible, I mean, the most obvious example is just you see boobs. You see boobs and you stop for a little longer than you wanted. You were like, I was here to learn about cool science. Boobs.

• 16:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And then it's like, wait, maybe I should show this person more boobs.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Here they are. Bigger and better. Let's go.

• 16:17Speaker 00

  Which, look, I mean boobs fantastic. So I'm not that worried about boobs in particular, but I, but I am worried about it. Like, so like salience is the word that I use for this. So like anything that is easy to pay attention to boobs, great example of a thing that are, a thing, two things that are easy to pay attention to. And, and then, but they're so, but like, what are the easiest things to pay attention to is a really interesting sort of set of thoughts to go down. And then what makes something easy to pay attention to? And am I in control of that? And I'm not really.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  What are some examples you're worried about? Yeah.

• 16:56Speaker 00

  Crime committed by people who look different from me.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:01Speaker 00

  Is very easy to pay attention to and very easy to sort of like, once your feed starts being that, that's all you get. And then you're like, wait a second. I think that these people who look different from me are committing an awful lot of crime. And it's like, well, are they? Or is it just that that is something that people watch because it's scary? And, and so it's very easy to pay attention to. Another thing would be stories about how I'm better than other people, which we all want. I'm not, it's not like, it's not just a racism thing. It's also just a political thing. Like if you show me content about how like people who vote differently than me are dumb, I'm like, well, I did watch that.

• 17:40Speaker 00

  And, and so, so there's like this, this, this like combination of like outrage is really like, this is, you know, cute is one very salient thing. Outrage is another very, like these test very highly. Sexual stuff also tests very highly.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  And, and the, the reason, like I think about a lot about outrage, like what is it actually? And it tends to have a component of superiority tied along with it. So like, I am angry about this. The world shouldn't be this way. If I were in charge, none of this would be happening. Like it's, there's like a morality to outrage.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes. And you, you do use outrage in some of your videos and what I would say to good, to good purpose. I mean, there was a, a graph, some garbage graph about climate change.

• 18:33Speaker 05

  As you can see, they're not occurring more than in recent years.

• 18:36Speaker 00

  You don't know if they're occurring more than in recent years? Because there's all kinds of things that mess with this.

• 18:42Speaker 05

  Earth is decreasing.

• 18:44Speaker 00

  What would you expect to have happen if the earth was getting warmer?

• 18:49Speaker 01

  You were very angry about that and I was too. And it did pull me in. Your anger and outrage and the fact you couldn't go to bed. Did you have to sort out the graph?

• 18:59Speaker 00

  I was, I did a lot of, I literally did a lot of graph research at 11:30 at night. Yeah. Not the best choice I've ever made, but yeah.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  So I want to talk about, just staying with the algorithm. In the early days of social media, about 2010, do you remember when this idea of filter bubbles by Ali Karisa sort of entered the fray? And it was, do you want to explain it?

• 19:23Speaker 00

  Sure. I mean, the filter, the, yeah, the basic idea of the filter bubble is very simple, which is like, if you are existing inside of a curated environment, then you see a different world than the people around you. And, and like you kind of never interact with the, the, the world of people who have different worldviews than you, which.

• 19:45Speaker 00

  Is I I feel like the sort of like first that like the the version one of Filter Bubbles was like a like a good first step. And then it has turned out to be all so much more complicated than that. Like, for example, I see lots of right wing perspectives. I just see the absolute craziest ones, you know, like my filter bubble.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  That's what your algorithm is giving you.

• 20:07Speaker 00

  It's it selects for left wing people finding the craziest right wing perspectives and then showing that to left wing people, you know? So it's like, like here, here and that like that, that's, that's like, you know,

• 20:23Speaker 00

  never would we have expected that this was one of the ways that it would function.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this is fascinating because to prepare for this interview, I I definitely feel like, I think we all feel like we live in a filter bubble. It is the deep story. We've got this echo chamber. It's it's used to explain why there's this deep polarization when two people, a political issue happens in the world, people have these very different views of it. And and there's this story that it's because we're seeing different images of what is happening. That's how divisive the internet is right now because of these personalized algorithms. But I was looking into the science of it and researchers cannot clearly find evidence for filter bubbles. Isn't this crazy? It's crazy to me. Let me give you some quotes.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  So one report out of Oxford Uni said, um, the research, quote, suggests echo chambers are much less widespread than is commonly assumed. Most people have relatively diverse media diets. Another academic in a in a chapter said that filter bubbles were a, quote, unfounded moral panic. And basically, the idea being that, as your case in point, is that it's much more complicated. Sometimes we are fed information from the other side, but then we often dismiss it out of hand. And so this researcher was saying, we need to, we are a part, we are complicit in our polarized views.

• 21:50Speaker 00

  Oh, for sure.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  And then, yeah, and so and then and then the other point was they were saying we're actively seeking out information that further polarizes our views. What do you make of this?

• 22:03Speaker 00

  I mean, like, the thing that really turned me from being like, like, ah, that like the the version of Filter Bubbles that I heard in the TED Talk 15 years ago is is like not entirely, uh, like gonna be the the version of reality is when when somebody said to me, never before have our information diets been more diverse than they are right now.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 22:26Speaker 00

  And I like, I I think that the, by far, the best frame for all of this is what holds your attention. And this is really hard to like, it it doesn't seem right, but like, let me pitch you this. So we have this understanding now that we are all kind of suffering due to the hyper palatability of food. So we got, we got too good at making food too delicious. And so people ate more of it because it's so good. And if you have a french fry and then a Coke, you can have more french fry and they pair very well. And, uh, that doesn't seem right because Coke is also food. But, uh, so we have this like hyper palatability problem in

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:08Speaker 00

  in food. We also have a hyper palatability or like a hyper salience problem in media where I and all of my colleague creators are in collaboration with like the most sophisticated software of all time to create stuff that is just a little bit more salient than the than the person next to me is creating. And I try to use my powers for good, but I don't know if I always do, but I but like not everybody is trying to use their powers for good because they're more ambitious than me, they're younger than me, they they didn't get lucky as I did, and they have to compete. And it's harder to compete when when they're them than when they're me. And, uh, and and my, so like, imagine, like, like, trying to understand what a sort

• 23:53Speaker 00

  of hyper salient information object is like, is really interesting to me. So, for example, you would want something that's not just threatening to you, it's maybe threatening to your children. Like, that'd be hyper salient. You'd also want something where it's like, there's like a big nefarious, like, thing that is more powerful than you that you can't control. So that's like another level of threat. And then like my favorite favorite hyper salient object to identify is what if this thing that you've been told is good your whole life is actually bad? And so that's like a different scale or like, like flavor of threat.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  And what if I told you a thing where you could tell a story, all three of those stories at the same time about an object and that object is vaccines?

• 24:39Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, or it could be fluoride in the water.

• 24:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So many things, or like NPR, you know, like, like USAID, you know, all of these things that are like FEMA, you know? Like, there's conspiracies about about the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the thing that like saves people when things go wrong.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:57Speaker 00

  That's like, all they do is like negotiate bottled water contracts in case something bad happens. And it's like, I don't know, that sounds, that sounds pretty scary to me.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Oh, goodness.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  So that this is, this is like a a form of the thing that worries me is not really so much that we're polarized. It's the thing that we all have started to agree on, which is that like institutions are bad, experts are bad, like completely losing faith in all of society is really bad for society and also bad for systems. And I feel like that's just sort of a lot of what gets traction in a world where everything has to compete with everything else to be as attention grabbing as possible.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Yes. And while we are on the topic of slop on the internet, let's go into AI.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  What is worrying you about AI right now?

• 25:49Speaker 00

  Can I tell you a weird thought I had that's not worrying?

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Please.

• 25:53Speaker 00

  Do you know about Brandalini's Law?

• 25:56Speaker 01

  No.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  It's it's, uh, that that the, um, how does it, um?

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Do you know about Brandalini?

• 26:06Speaker 00

  Creation to to like refuting BS requires an order of magnitude more effort than creating BS.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Oh, God, I live, I live in Brandalini's Law. We both do, right?

• 26:19Speaker 00

  I can't believe this is your entire life.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Yes, I swim in this law. Oh, my gosh. Okay, yes.

• 26:26Speaker 00

  I, so so there's, because I would like to make the case that perhaps creating BS isn't just like an order of magnitude easier than refuting it. I think that it's, it's free and I think it's always been free. And I think that it's never going to be easier because it's as easy as it can be. Like, there's nothing easier than just saying some BS.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:51Speaker 00

  So it's, you can't actually make that easier. You can't make

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't need to research BS. You can just say, okay, yes.

• 26:58Speaker 00

  Now, at the same time, I think that they're like, I I've seen some true BS artists who will do a lot of research so that they can say clever sounding things to support their BS. And oftentimes, they are absolutely certain of, like, they they like

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:15Speaker 00

  eat the they're full of, like, they, they

• 27:18Speaker 01

  It is the new brand and super dangerous brand of misinformation out there right now, I I think. I mean, this, I, when you use these complicated sounding words

• 27:27Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  and and you really, really sound smart and at the base of what you're saying is just feces, you know, it's nothing, it's crazy.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  I mean, that's what pseudoscience really is. Like, that's when we talk about pseudoscience, we mean things that are like putting on the clothes of science and saying a bunch of big words and they're like metabolism, inflammation. And then you're like, I guess, I don't know.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Mitochondria, you know, whoa.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Yes. So wait, where do we get to the good? I thought you were telling me something good about AI.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  I have a, I have a, like, this sense that that like you can't, you can't make it easier to create BS.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:04Speaker 00

  So so actually, AI doesn't make creating BS easier.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  Right, the bar is

• 28:10Speaker 00

  Because it's already been at the bottom the whole time.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  But you can make more of it, you can pump out more of it.

• 28:14Speaker 00

  You can make more, but like more isn't necessarily, like, I think that we have like, uh, like, there's already an infinite amount of information also, like, we've already hit

• 28:24Speaker 01

  We're at capacity.

• 28:26Speaker 00

  Capacity for information.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Keep eating more crap.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  And I do hope, maybe, that there will be tools that will make the other side of the Brandalini's Law equation easier. So if if your job as a researcher becomes easier because of tools with which you can research more quickly, you can find information, you can digest papers, you can, you can, like, if if that part becomes easier, then like, that is, and I'm not saying, because we're gonna talk about other things that I'm very worried about, but, uh, but but like, that's like, what what I'll say, that's a version of the story you can tell where it doesn't actually make it worse. And so like, one of the things I feel about any big transition like this, having lived

• 29:12Speaker 00

  through a few of them, is, boy, do I not predict what's gonna happen because I'm always wrong. It's like so, so weird. It's so strange.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  I'm gonna put a prediction out there, though, that I do hear that AI produces a bunch of BS, then maybe AI produces a bunch of facts and they're just the AI just talking to each other while the world burns.

• 29:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, a little bit of that. What I will say is I think that absolutely AI will make scamming way easier.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:42Speaker 00

  So I think scamming is different than like, like, information BS, but like, like, direct person to person scams and grifts, I think, like, it's so, it's so scary right now. Where like, I like, I, I don't know, like, I feel, I feel like, you know, I I could like, watch someone's YouTube videos, clone their voice, call their mom with their voice and be like, hey, Mom, can you send me 20 bucks? What's your bank account number?

• 30:08Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. You got a safe word? You got a safe word?

• 30:10Speaker 00

  Everybody needs a safe word.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Everyone needs a safe word. Okay, so when we zoom out and think about where AI might be headed, I have heard that you have a video that you have not released with the question of, will a computer ever suffer?

• 30:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  But you haven't put it out. What are you wrestling with here? Do you think a computer will ever suffer?

• 30:33Speaker 00

  I think a computer can suffer. And, uh, but I don't like, I think the, the kind of interesting thing I want to say here is maybe a computer won't ever suffer because we won't need them to, they won't need themselves to, there will be no reason to build suffering. And, and there is like two sides to this, like maybe there will be no reason to build suffering inside of a non, like a non biological thing. Why would you create it? And then there's the other side, which is it is an inevitability. If you have it prefers one thing to another thing, which they already do. Then if you tie experience to that, then the, the feeling of not having the thing that

• 31:18Speaker 00

  it wants, or the feeling of failing, or the feeling of, of, um, you know, not being able to achieve whatever series of goals it has will feel like suffering.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  So.

• 31:35Speaker 00

  So.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  On the topic of suffering, shall we talk about your cancer diagnosis?

• 31:39Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  Sorry. Segways is so hard, Hank.

• 31:46Speaker 00

  No, that's, that's a great one. That's a great one. I just feel bad that I did. I, I, I just, I just want to say before we leave AI behind, I am legitimately worried about three weird guys having this much power. Okay, now we can move on.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  And they've got bunkers or structures.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  A lot of them seem to have structures, which is a little worrying.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  So in 2023, um, you had a.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  Wait, can I do, can I do a segue?

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Absolutely, please.

• 32:17Speaker 00

  But their structures will not protect them from cancer. Segway.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Segway, thank you, thank you. After the break, how Hank peed out his cancer, literally, coming up.

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• 34:06Speaker 09

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• 34:37Speaker 01

  Welcome back. Today on the show, I'm chatting with veteran science communicator, YouTuber Hank Green. Let's jump back in. So in 2023.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  You found a lump in your lymph nodes and did some tests and the doctor told you, we know you have cancer, we just don't know what kind.

• 34:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, in fact, it was better news than that a little bit. She said that we know, they, they say that you have lymphoma, but they're not sure what kind yet. Which is good because if you have cancer in your lymph nodes and it's not lymphoma, then that means it's probably metastasized from somewhere else. And that would be worse news. So that was a little bit of good news and she did tell me about that.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  So you ended up having to do chemo. You were ultimately diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, which your doctor told you.

• 35:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, my doctor did not say that. I knew this. And in fact, like they did not need to say anything to me. They were like, my doctor called me and was like, we find, we just got it back. I just heard it's Hodgkin's. And I was like, thank you so much. Thank you so much. And I just hung up and I told Catherine and I knew that that was the.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  Your wife.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  That was the best outcome.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:44Speaker 00

  By the time I got staged, um, like a, a 5% chance that I would not be alive in five years.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  What did, what possibly, what went through your mind when all of this was unfolding?

• 35:57Speaker 00

  Like, there's like weird practicalities of, of like, I gotta make sure my passwords are all in great order. In fact, I, I had had a weird experience before I found out that I like, so I went to see my doctor just to get like anti-anxiety pills. And, and I was like, this is a crazy thing to go to my doctor and be like, I need you to help me with my anxiety. And then I was like, second thing to help me with my anxiety, can you tell me that I'll be alive in three months? Because otherwise I got some stuff to do. And she was like, here's your prescription for your anti-anxiety medicine. I cannot. And, uh, so I was like, okay, well, I guess I'm gonna do this stuff. So there was stuff to do during that period of time because if it was like metastasized lung cancer or something, I really might not have lived for three months.

• 36:42Speaker 00

  So that, that was terrifying. And then, uh, when I knew though, that, that they're like, that the landscape was like, okay, like I've got years at least. And that looked very much like, okay, so I have to like prepare for treatment, I have to understand treatment, I have to, I, I like, am worrying about like, okay, like, you know, my son's not gonna like be grown up for a decade. Like I thought maybe I would be more worried about work. I wasn't worried about work at all. I wasn't worried about like how everybody was gonna handle life without me at work. I was worried about like my family. I was worried a little bit about like all the information that's tied up inside of

• 37:25Speaker 00

  my head, uh, and like feeling bad for not having mentored more people. But I didn't feel, another thing that I was surprised is I didn't feel like worried about missing the future. Like the, not like, I was worried about like not seeing my son grow up, but I wasn't worried about like missing, like a mission to Mars or the next scientific advancement, which is like, I love that stuff. So that's like so much what, what like I enjoy about the world is like finding some new thing that we have discovered, but I wasn't, I'm like kind of freed to find out that I don't, like when I die, I won't, I probably maybe won't actually care that I'm gonna miss out on the next set of discoveries, even though that is really a source of joy in my life.

• 38:10Speaker 00

  So that's very interesting to me.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you, you did discover many things about your body and chemo. So one of, I think the most fascinating is tell me what happened when your pee got cloudy.

• 38:23Speaker 00

  Sure, yeah, I thought I had a UTI because my, my, it burned when I peed and my pee was super cloudy and I went in, I called. And so when you have, when you're in chemo, they take everything very seriously because you basically have no white blood cells and so little things can become big things really fast. And so I called and they were like, come in and do a urine test. And I came in and I did. And luckily, by chance, my doctor was like free at that moment. So they did it and, and he was like, hey, come on in. And we chatted and I was, I was like, uh, he was like, you're all good, your pee looks fine. And I was like, well, why is my pee cloudy? And he's, well, first I said, why is it burn when I pee? And he was like, that's the chemo. It may, you like pee out the chemo and it irritates you urethra.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  You pee out the chemo. There's a lot of pieces in there. Yeah.

• 39:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, your, your kidneys filter it out and, uh, you know, it isn't all the way broken down by the time it gets out. So it's, it does some damage on the way out. And.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  But the reason it's cloudy is you are looking at literal pieces of little bits of cancer.

• 39:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so I was like, why is it cloudy? And he was like, that's the little, that's like the parts of the cells.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  It's like fats and proteins from the cells that have broken down in your body and you are, your kidney filters them out. And like a lot of that stuff actually gets recycled by the body, but when you have like a big release of it.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:51Speaker 00

  It overwhelms those systems and, and you actually can see the physical effects of the cells, uh, exiting you, which is amazing.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  Did it change the way you looked at your pee? I mean, I find this very inspirational.

• 40:02Speaker 00

  Everything changed the way I looked at everything. I, yeah, no, it was very good. It was amazing to, to, to be like seeing the physical results. And, and a lot of times you don't, you don't really know that you're getting that. And so you're like waiting for the next scan. I was very lucky not just to have the pee, but also had a lymph node that I could feel. Most of my lymph nodes were underneath my pectoral muscle, so I couldn't like palpate them and I couldn't, couldn't feel what they were up to. But I had one in my armpit that I could feel and I could feel it changing shape and texture.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Wow. And now.

• 40:35Speaker 00

  Texture is a weird word, uh, but yeah, it was softer, I should say.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  It was, it was, you could feel improvement. And, and how are you now?

• 40:43Speaker 00

  I'm good. I've been in remission for almost three years and I remain, uh, much more medically anxious than I was. I have had some, you know, almost everybody has a little bit of like some level of disability that they can't carry out of cancer treatment, it turns out, which I also was a thing that I never thought about. I have some pain that I didn't use to have. The anxiety is definitely a thing. I got, I got shingles this year so bad, which is apparently a thing that can happen to people who've done chemo. And it was, it was, it just, I like, I've had shingles before and this was like, I don't know, like 30 times worse. It was so bad.

• 41:26Speaker 00

  It still hurts and it's been like two months.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  I'm so sorry.

• 41:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's crazy. Thank you to everybody who's ever done a clinical trial, by the way, who's refined these treatments so that they are now so much more tolerable.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  And gosh, I'm gonna try another segue, Hank. I'm really sorry. Just while we're on crap crappy things. Let's zoom out. Let's zoom out.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  What is it like in the US, I guess? I mean, it's so crazy right now.

• 41:53Speaker 00

  Uh, it feels pretty bad. Feels like something I never would have expected. It's heavy for sure. And maybe I'm like just beating this drum because this is my anchor. But like, I think that when you have a communications revolution, like existing institutions take a pretty hard hit every time.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  Like, right now, I feel like I kind of wish the internet hadn't happened. But I don't think that that is what I feel will be the long-term opinion of it. I think that in the long term.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Right now, you are craving.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  I don't have any, any, any more, uh, like ability to feel as if things, as if it has made the world better, like I used to. And like, and I'm like an optimistic, hopeful person, but like, this is a mess and it is a mess that is created by the fracturing of communication.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  You think this is all due to the, the fracturing of communication, as you put it? There's sort of social media spaces, the breakdown of traditional media? Is that what you're referring to specifically?

• 42:58Speaker 00

  I think that that's sort of like a, uh, those are two things that are also emergent of the thing. But the thing is many to many communication being free. Participated, I ride that wave. And I don't think that on its own does it. I think that that combined with, you know, social media, like algorithms, social content platform algorithms, doing this recommendation and promotion. I think that we do not, to any extent, understand how much we live in a world constructed by AI. But it is not large language models. It is recommendation algorithms.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. How then do you feel that you are in the middle of this? I mean, you are one of the biggest YouTubers in the world.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  It's not true, but thank you.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  One, one of.

• 43:48Speaker 00

  One of the biggest YouTubers in Wendy Zukerman's world, for sure.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  I don't know about the others.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  I mean, you are in this space and yet, I mean, are you thinking of just pulling the plug? And, you know, becoming a gardener?

• 44:04Speaker 00

  Me leave? No, never. No. Yeah, no, like the, that's not how I think about it at all. I got, I think that it is vitally important for thoughtful people to be engaging with it. It, in a way where you try and understand it and understand how it's affecting society. And like, that's how we get through.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  It's like an ex. You're breaking up. You're in that middle breaking up period. I'm still obsessed with you and you, maybe you could be good.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Maybe you could come good.

• 44:33Speaker 00

  Actually, like, that's not.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Marissa.

• 44:36Speaker 00

  I can fix you. Yeah, no, it doesn't sound like that, does it?

• 44:41Speaker 01

  All right, Hank, we're gonna end with our oddball questions.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  Quick questions to cap us off. Are you ready?

• 44:52Speaker 00

  I'm ready.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Okay. What is a conspiracy theory that you secretly have a bit of a soft spot for?

• 44:58Speaker 00

  That caterpillars and butterflies used to be different species and merged.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Shut up and just tell me we didn't land on the moon.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  I mean, it's definitely not true. And there's also all kinds of other bugs that have larval. There's fish who have larval stages. Larval stages are totally a thing that happens that are normal. But like, I love the idea. Like, I agree. You look at a caterpillar, you look at a butterfly and you're like, there's no way. That's no way. Those are different things.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  And they go into the concord. Yeah. It's like, what the hell's going on in there?

• 45:42Speaker 00

  No, there was a worm and there was a butterfly and then they somehow merged, like the mitochondria and the cell.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  Finish this sentence. Now that I know blank, I'll never look at blank the same way again.

• 45:55Speaker 00

  Hmm. Now that I know how cancer works, I will never look at life the same way again.

• 46:01Speaker 00

  And not mine, just for clarity, the existence of multicellular organisms.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Tell me more.

• 46:11Speaker 00

  Do you know what cancer is? Nobody knows what can, can you give me the Wendy Zukerman's, like, uh, answer to that question? What is cancer?

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Sure. I would say cancer is when the DNA mutates in your cells in a particular way that creates a cell that will then replicate faster than other cells in your body.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there is, there is at the, at the root of that, a mechanism at work that nobody talks about, I think, just because it's terrifying, which is that natural selection is acting on these cells. And so any cell that can replicate faster than other cells, there will be more of that cell. Any trait that allows it to replicate faster, there will be more of that trait. And, uh, and, and thus, if you understand how natural selection works, if you're like, wait a second, then multicellularity shouldn't work.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  Because we should just be having these cancer type cells.

• 46:58Speaker 00

  The moment that, that a multicellular organism starts existing, some cell in that multicellular organism is gonna be like, well, if I, like, it's not gonna think this. If it acquires a trait that allows it to multiply faster than the other cells in the organism, it will just do that. That, not because of anything, just because if the, if it's able to make more of itself, there will be more of it.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, then there's so many cells in our body. Surely one is gonna go rogue.

• 47:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And indeed, it does happen in about 40% of people. By the end of their life. But what this means is that like the existence of multicellularity is from the first little weird jelly thing in the Ediacaran has been all based on controlling cancer. It's been controlling cancer the whole time. That's what multicellularity is. It is cells working together to try and pass their genes on to the next colony of cell, rather than the next individual cell. And in order to do that, shouting at each other and working constantly to stop each other from becoming a cancer.

• 48:01Speaker 00

  It's fucking wild.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Yes. That is, I mean, that is, it does kind of make me think of when I was in college, I had this theory, I worked at a bakery, that everything is bread. And now that you've gone through this cancer, you're like, everything is cancer. Everything is fighting cancer.

• 48:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well, we look and like tumor suppressor genes are among the oldest genes in, in.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  It's crazy. It is, it is a crazy thought now that you think about it. Yeah. We just walk, that is the, the, almost the basis of multicellular life, just fighting cancer.

• 48:32Speaker 00

  Just like bread.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  What's your favorite title to a scientific paper that you read recently?

• 48:37Speaker 00

  I was rereading the scientific paper that, uh, Thomas Hodgkin wrote about Hodgkin's lymphoma when he discovered it, which was titled, "On Some Morbid Appearances of the Absorbent Glands and Spleen", which we used to have better titles to papers.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  No. Wow. Yes. All right. Can I tell you, Hank Green, my theory as to why when you fart and light a match, the smell goes away?

• 49:02Speaker 00

  Okay, hit me. I have, I, now I have a guess, but.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  Okay. You wanna, have you thought about it? Like, have you used this strategy when you do a fart?

• 49:11Speaker 00

  I have not, but I've heard of it.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  A farty person?

• 49:15Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, but we're just, we're very chill about the fart smells in our house.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. You're not, that means you're not a really farty person. You don't know. You don't know what it's like, mate. If you're, we're fine, we're all fine with farts. But there comes a level you need to use the match.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Why do you think it works?

• 49:37Speaker 00

  Um, I have, I, so it is not the match lighting, but the match going out would be my guess. That when the match goes out, it creates a smell that overwhelms the fart smell?

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Okay, the mask, the, the typical masking theory. Yes.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  The masking theory, yeah.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  It, it's been, it's been proposed. This is what I think the internet thinks, but I think it goes deeper.

• 50:02Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  I think it goes, it goes caterpillar butterfly deeper.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  And now I finally have someone to tell.

• 50:09Speaker 00

  Podcast together. This is ridiculous. I don't know why we don't.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  I'm so excited. Do you know how many people I have tried to tell this theory to and they could not give a shit?

• 50:21Speaker 00

  And, and I'm, and I'm like, I wanna spend every, I've spent an hour with you a week forever, is how I respond.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  Okay. All right. Here it is. Here it is. Here it is. Okay, so when you light a match, red phosphorus is at the end. And the ignition point of red phosphorus is 260 degrees Celsius, which is 500 Fahrenheit. The reason a fart is smelly is because of hydrogen sulfide.

• 50:56Speaker 00

  In part.

• 50:56Speaker 01

  In the fart. In part, in part.

• 50:59Speaker 00

  That's often the smelliest part.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  Often the smelliest part, famously rotten egg smell. Guess what the ignition point of hydrogen sulfide is?

• 51:08Speaker 00

  You think you're burning hydrogen sulfide in the egg?

• 51:11Speaker 01

  I think it's exactly 260 degrees Celsius.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  I think through the magic of chemistry, the smell, the hydrogen sulfide is splitting apart. And you are, you are creating whatever. I think it becomes maybe water, H2O in the air.

• 51:32Speaker 00

  And some kind of sulfur.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  I think the smell disappears. I think it's more than masking.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  I don't know, Wendy, because I feel like you'd have to get all of the air to 262 degrees Celsius, which would definitely be bad. Cause it's not like, it's not gonna spread around. It's not, the fart smell isn't just at the, at the strike point on the matchbox.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  It's a good point.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  Hank Green, cut it again.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  We need to do some actual science.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Actual science. Exactly. Catch us next time.

• 52:04Speaker 00

  I've been 10, 10 years. 10 years I've been trying to figure out how to do science on whether butt hair prevents chafing and I still haven't gotten it done.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  Because when you had chemo, you lost your butt hair.

• 52:19Speaker 00

  It's true. Yeah, yeah. It was great. Way preferable to the alternative, I have to say.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  Did it, did you have any less chafing?

• 52:28Speaker 00

  Well, I wouldn't know. I wasn't jogging, you know? In bed, watching Seinfeld and eating Chick-fil-A.

• 52:42Speaker 00

  There's not like much opportunity for chafing when I went up and downstairs once a day.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Thank you so much, Hank. Thanks so much for your time.

• 52:50Speaker 00

  Thank you. I'm a huge fan. It is so great to be here, keep doing the good things you do.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  That was my chat with the science communicator Hank Green. Now, soon after I interviewed Hank, some people got a bit miffed because of how he's used AI to help make some of his content. And you might have heard about some of that controversy. Hank has, in the meantime, released a new AI use policy, which you can find on his YouTube channel. You can also find Hank at SciShow. And his comedy special is called Pissing Out Cancer. It came out in 2024. We'd love to know what you thought of this episode. You can find us all over social media. We're on Instagram and TikTok. We're also on YouTube now, so come and find us at ScienceVS Podcast. If you're already watching on YouTube, hello, please like

• 53:40Speaker 01

  and subscribe. And if you liked this episode, then why don't you share it with one of your friends? This episode was produced by me, Wendy Zukerman, and Keddie Foster Keys, with help from Merrill Horn, Rose Rimler, and Michelle Dang. Editing by Blythe Terrell. Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord. Music written by Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, So Wiley, Fumi Hidaka, and Emma Munger. An extra thanks to the Zukerman family and Joseph Lovell Wilson. I'm Wendy Zukerman. Back to you next time.

• 54:12Speaker 10

  Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure. Get double points on every qualified stay. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions.

• 54:28Speaker 08

  Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing and wearable. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com slash Apple Watch Series 12.