Giving AI Another Chance
Published May 07, 2026 · 2:41 · 26,000 views
About This Video
Van Neistat's first ChatGPT session, March 2023, went badly. He asked how to turn off the histogram on his Leica Q2 and got a wrong answer. He asked for a starter-motor part number, ordered the part it gave him, and it was wrong too. This clip is about why he came back to AI anyway.
The early failures were trust-destroyers. A wrong camera setting is annoying; a wrong part you actually purchase costs money and time. So Van walked away from it. The thing that pulled him back was not a better chatbot but watching what AI could do in other hands.
Two things turned him around. First, a small one: a misattributed quote, that calling yourself an artist is like calling yourself a genius. Van thought it came from No Direction Home, scrubbed the entire three-and-a-half-hour documentary, and couldn't find it. A Patreon subscriber supplied the real source, Van found the clip, and used AI to strip the music off it. Second, the big one: Isabel started using Claude to build money courses for children, and then built Bower, a pod school platform for teachers and parents that Van calls "LinkedIn plus Airbnb plus school." His estimate of what it would have cost in conventional engineering runs to hundreds of thousands of dollars and months of work. She built it for a few months at $200 a month.
That cost displacement is what brought Van back. He decided to point AI at a multicam problem he had avoided for four years, configuring an ATEM Mini Pro switcher, which is the build at the center of the flagship episode this clip is cut from. The argument of that episode is the part people miss: AI used not to add screens and menus but to remove them. The same hands-on logic runs through escaping Final Cut Pro and making his stuff his own. It all sits under analog living.
What Van Uses: ChatGPT (the early, frustrating experience), Claude (Isabel's build tool for Bower), the Leica Q2 from the things Van loves, and a Blackmagic ATEM Mini Pro switcher for the multicam rig. Bower itself lives at educateprivately.com.
Related: Long-Form Episode 1, A Build: Escaping Final Cut Pro, Making My Stuff Mine.
FAQ
What was Van Neistat's first experience with ChatGPT?
March 2023. He asked how to turn off the histogram on his Leica Q2 and got a wrong answer, then asked for a starter-motor part number, ordered the part it suggested, and that was wrong too. The failures made him abandon it for a while.
What is Bower?
The pod school platform Isabel built using Claude. Van describes it as "LinkedIn plus Airbnb plus school" for teachers and parents, and as proof that AI lets non-engineers build serious software for a fraction of the old cost.
How did Van end up using AI in his filmmaking?
He pointed it at a multicam setup he had avoided for four years, using it to configure an ATEM Mini Pro switcher. The flagship episode's whole argument is using AI to remove screens and menus from the workflow, not add them.
Transcript
First time I used chat GPT was March 2023. I asked it how to turn off the histogram on my Q2. It told me it was wrong. I asked it for a part number for a starter motor. It told me I ordered it. It was wrong.
Hey, was it Bobby Neworth who said referring to yourself as an artist like referring to yourself as a genius? Sure was. Where? No Direction Home. Where in No Direction Home? Probably somewhere in the middle. No Direction Home is a 3 and 1/2 hour documentary. I scrubbed through the whole documentary. It weren't there. One of my Patreon subscribers told me it was Charles Eins. Found the clip. Used AI to remove the music. It's a little embarrassing to hear people refer to themselves as artists. It's like referring to themselves as a genius.
Then Isabelle started using Claude to make these courses for children about money. This was a few months ago and they were brilliant. The courses, the courses were brilliant. She started building Bower, which is a very sophisticated pod school platform and for teachers and parents. Basically, LinkedIn plus Airbnb plus school. It's the future. Pod school is the correct concept. And this thing that she built Bower I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars and months of engineering it would have cost but certainly more than a few months at 200 bucks a month.
So I thought maybe I can use chat GPT to solve my multicam problem that I've been avoiding quarter inch for 4 years. Oh yeah. 1 2 3 4 years. The A10 Mini Pro.
This video is a piece of a long form episode that's either linked to in the description or coming out soon. Join a paid tier of the Patreon to get in touch with me or to avail yourself of this channel's alternative universe. You can click this. It'll take you right there.
Products & Tools Mentioned
- ChatGPT negative→mixed — wrong about Leica histogram, wrong starter motor part, eventually useful for multicam
- Claude positive — Isabel used it to build children's money courses and Bower
- Bower positive — "LinkedIn plus Airbnb plus school," pod school platform for teachers and parents
- Leica Q2 neutral — histogram question was Van's first ChatGPT interaction
- ATEM Mini Pro positive — solution to multicam problem Van avoided for 4 years
- No Direction Home negative (AI context) — 3.5-hour documentary Van scrubbed looking for misattributed quote
- Patreon positive — subscriber corrected the Charles Eins attribution
People Referenced
Isabel, Bobby Neworth, Charles Eins