Tech Hype’s Very Long History & Why That’s Good
From Mesmer's magnetic wands to AI's digital dreams, we've been overhyping tech for centuries—turns out our collective FOMO is actually how innovation gets done.
Francois was feeling hopeful. His arthritis was growing worse and pain was a constant. He donned the special robe and set foot into the large tub in the centre of the room. The treatment he was told, would be painless and while it took a bit, the results would prove wonderful. The media had been praising the treatment for months. The tub was filled with iron filings, with bottles and rods sticking out here and there. It was 1776 in Paris, and Francois was about to be mesmerised.
Human societies have long hyped new and emerging technologies, going as far back as the time of the Egyptians, possibly longer, we just can’t really know. But this hype of technologies may actually be a feature rather than a bug. Why?
The story of the Mechanical Turk is a very well known one. A man hid inside a box made to look like a machine and people would play chess with the “machine.” Except it was a human. The first vaporware? In Egyptian times, they built “robots” that were often presented as having consciousness? AGI anyone?
In the late 1800’s as the telegraph spread around the world, some thought it would be the end of poetry, while many thought it would mean the end of war since we could communicate faster. The same was said of social media in the late 00's.
Then there were phrenology machines in the 1830s. They claimed that through their measuring systems they could measure personality and intelligence. Such measurements were also used to bolster the debunked and horrid idea of eugenics. A stain on anthropology to this day.
In the 1890’s, the first x-ray machines were launched. the public feared privacy issues, believing they’d see through walls and the medical claims of cures were through the roof.
In the late 1960’s, cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky, a co-founder of the MIT Ai laboratory claimed that within a generation the problem of creating artificial intelligence would be substantially solved. Meanwhile today, LLMs continue to hallucinate and no one can fix it. Yet.
Technology Hype Cycles As Innovation Drivers
We have this tendency to overestimate the impact of a technology at the start and to underestimate its impact in the long term. Often called Amara’s Law and it’s proven largely correct. While many may be exhausted with the hype of AI these days, our long history of hyping technology may be a key aspect of driving technology innovation.
While the capital that rushes into technology hype cycles in the early days may seem bizarre and much is later lost when these bubbles always pop, it does play a role in technology advancement. As a result of the .com collapse, it lead to the fibre optic networks that fuelled Web 2.0.
There’s even a sort of evolutionary pressure that takes hold. The hype creates selection pressures on existing systems. When tech entrepreneurs set these seemingly outlandish goals it often results in collective problem solving, even though many projects will fail. And failing can teach us valuable lessons.
Societally, hype cycles allow a sort of social rehearsal where we play with an consider possible futures before these technologies fully mature. Play and speculation, or thought experiments help sociocultural systems prepare for the impending changes. Even though we can’t entirely be sure how those changes will play out.
Paradoxically, tech hype cycles end up tempering expectations in societies. Each of these hype cycles teaches us to be both excited and skeptical of the promises made. Thus creating a sort of cultural immune system.
Technology hype also serves as what anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss might note as a function of myth making, enabling us to translate the complexity of a technology and possible outcomes in a way that non-technical people can wrap their heads around, forming social narratives.
A sort of creative destruction often happens. These hype cycles accelerate the necessary pressures for social and economic revolution, creating the momentum to overcome institutional inertia and old systems resistance.
So it may well be that hype cycles do serve a purpose, as annoying as they can seem when one is in the midst of such an event. Feature rather than bug. In every hype cycle there are proponents and opponents. Neither are ever entirely right in the predicted changes. Nor should we expect them to be.
When we understand these cycles for what they are and the role they play, we can better temper expectations and put a more critical lens on any technology, becoming more pragmatic. Not that we always do. Getting caught up in a hype cycle can be exciting and exhausting. But they’re likely here to stay and maybe that’s a good thing.