Social media failed to deliver on its promises, so why should we believe artificial intelligence will be any different? The Gartner Hype Cycle, coined in 1995, maps the euphoria and hysteria around new technology, followed by a plunge into the 'trough of disillusionment' when it fails to deliver. For AI, we are at the 'peak of inflated expectations', with some arguing we are already in freefall as companies struggle to convert investments into productivity.
Most creatives, workers, and humans—except those who have invested trillions into AI—would welcome that freefall. As a writer and tech worker, I have seen people's propensity to believe in things they don't understand. I once had a boss who revered my work because it sounded like AI, but it was actually information architecture, which shares only the same letters.
Big tech relies on our hope and optimism, as well as our fear of dystopian futures. The hype feeds on both positivity and negativity. Perhaps we should consider collective ignoring, like students ignoring a disruptive class clown. But tech bros are not funny; they hold immense power. Money is made not from products working but from making investors believe that society can be made to believe a certain future is inevitable.
Resisting big tech is difficult, but one simple way is to ignore its stories about our lives. As a fiction writer, I understand making people believe something made up. As a tech worker during the first Trump presidency, I worked on a product to teach Mexican Spanish, a time when Washington at least pretended to control Silicon Valley. Now, with AI, we are believing again in stories from the same men.
My first novel was pirated by Meta to feed its large language model, along with many other authors. I am not saying ignore what tech companies do—we must fight to protect intellectual property—but ignore what they say. If we reject the narrative that tech prosperity is inevitable, the fight becomes easier.
