Where Did All The AI-Hype Go?
The AI hype train is already over before it even got a chance to get started
The AI hype train is already over before it even got a chance to get started.
Remember when Steve Jobs would get up on stage, and there was thunderous applause, followed by silent tension so quiet that you could hear a pin drop, because everybody knew that whatever came next was going to blow their minds?
And that wasn’t all.
Whatever blew their minds first was often followed by a, “But wait… there’s more.”
And you knew that when you heard those words, your mind was going to be completely incinerated by whatever Steve Jobs showed you next? And that show went on for years, with every new release and every new design blowing our minds, even if you were someone like me who was never really an Apple fan in general.
Where is that with AI?
Sure, our minds were blown a year or two ago with ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity when they all first came onto the scene. Next came images, and that was impressive, but we knew video was coming. And when it did, it delivered, and has only improved since.
But then OpenAI recently hosted it’s 5.0 release for ChatGPT, and there was a palpable level of excitement leading up to the release. It was being hyped up by AI influencers and people in the tech industry, as well as by OpenAI itself, hosting a full-blow presentation with a live audience and everything.
But afterwards, it was just…. Womp womp womp.
A big nothing burger for the average person.
Sure, there were some changes on the backend that got some tech people engaged, but the broader audience felt like there was little to nothing new in this release –– if anything, what followed was an experience that felt like they’d downgraded the system, and that things had regressed from where they had been just hours prior to the ‘upgrade’.
This was followed by apologies, roll-backs, updates, and more. And yeah, sure, it’s great that OpenAI is “listening” to its customers, but at the end of the day… it feels like the hype train has already ended.
There is no sustained suspense. No lines wrapping around the block waiting for the new release. No breathtaking moments as our minds are collectively blown by the next big thing.
… or maybe we’ve just grown accustomed to our minds being blown every 10 minutes with self-driving cars, taxis, and freight trucks, and AI already saturating every moment of our day, and all of our experiences from robo-taxis to videos and images that we’re constantly having to discern if they’re real or not, and maybe it’s overwhelming… and maybe AI has already become a nuisance rather than something we look forward to.
Whatever it is… it feels like it’s already gone.