Misrepresented Technological Solutions in Imagined Futures: The Origins and Dangers of AI Hype in the Research Community

TL;DR

This paper investigates why AI hype persists in the research community and society. It defines hype as unsupported performance claims and analyzes origins across R&D practices, private funding, media narratives, and imagined futures. It demonstrates how hype can distort risk assessment, misallocate research priorities, and contribute to harmful deployments. The authors propose a multi-pronged mitigation strategy—diversified funding, external audits and transparency, and improved technical literacy—to promote rigorous, responsible AI development with societal alignment.

Abstract

Technology does not exist in a vacuum; technological development, media representation, public perception, and governmental regulation cyclically influence each other to produce the collective understanding of a technology's capabilities, utilities, and risks. When these capabilities are overestimated, there is an enhanced risk of subjecting the public to dangerous or harmful technology, artificially restricting research and development directions, and enabling misguided or detrimental policy. The dangers of technological hype are particularly relevant in the rapidly evolving space of AI. Centering the research community as a key player in the development and proliferation of hype, we examine the origins and risks of AI hype to the research community and society more broadly and propose a set of measures that researchers, regulators, and the public can take to mitigate these risks and reduce the prevalence of unfounded claims about the technology.