The fourth article in our @hypestudies.bsky.social series at at @techpolicypress.bsky.social is out. Brilliant work by @marche.bsky.social and Kathy Cleary exposing how AI hype obfuscates the extractive practices behind training and labelling LLMs.

Some images from my forthcoming speculative video essay, Metabolism of Techno-Financial Worlding. In it, I explore venture capital as a massive artefact fed by an energy called Reality³, whose function is to invoke entities from the imaginary realm and install them in our world, transforming it.

We promised more news about the upcoming Hype Studies Glossary so let's start with page 1! 🥦 Recruitment call: book cover illustrator/designer 🧀 Whoever came up with the saying "don't judge a book by its cover" must be a audible user. We're definitely in the "picture is worth a 1000 words" camp!

I started writing a BlueSky post about that Nature essay and kept going until it turned into a whole piece in Tech Policy Press www.techpolicy.press/the-illusion...

Very exciting news indeed! Keep your eyes peeled for more news from Hype Studies crew @danishanley.bsky.social @velocitygravity.bsky.social @imaginaries.bsky.social , @wenzelmehnert.bsky.social Pierre Depaz, Jascha Bareis

We're waking up from the winter slumber to share some very exciting news! We've signed a book contract! "Hype Studies: A Glossary" is coming to your shelves in 2027. We are delighted to share we've signed a book contract with open access publisher, transcript Verlag.

How is Sam Altman's World infrastructuring a post-democratic AI future? In this paper published in AI & Society, @laura4lano.bsky.social and I analyse how World's value is built on sociotechnical fictions & existential risk narratives that advance a cyberlibertarian transition. tinyurl.com/c8kt4bbz

Estrenamos en @elsaltodiario.com colaboración con @hypestudies.bsky.social traduciendo al español sus artículos sobre tecnopolítica. Se estrenan con esta maravilla de texto sobre el hype y fondos de inversión de Andreu Belsunces @imaginaries.bsky.social www.elsaltodiario.com/hype-studies...

for more crypto histories & imaginaries tune into www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_gW... @lanalanalana.bsky.social , Andreu Belsunces @imaginaries.bsky.social & Kobe De Keere cattting to @philiproscoe.bsky.social and @addiemcgowan.bsky.social

Is there a risk that the dynamics of military technology hype enroll us all into a war hype? I argue yes in this piece just published by @techpolicypress.bsky.social. www.techpolicy.press/tech-venture...

Really enjoyed the conversation for the @jcultecon.bsky.social podcast. We discussed the paper we wrote with @arturocastro.bsky.social on how crypto embeds and reproduces neoliberalism, and how it participates in and benefits from crisis. Enjoy the podcast, and please be patient with my Spanglish!

Kevin’s chart really says it all. this is what it looks like when a vulnerable user gets sucked in by an engagement optimized chatbot

When a tech bubble grows, venture capital cashes in. Its high risk, high reward model depends on constantly persuading others that its futures matter. That’s why VC has a structural need for hype. Read my latest piece at @techpolicypress.bsky.social + @hypestudies.bsky.social

Also at @mozilla.org Fest, check out this AMAZING interactive installation, a visual database of AGI hype discourse, created by a group of talented students: hype-arenas.xyz It’s beautiful to see how one’s own research can step beyond academic language and become this ⬇️

Getting ready to my talk on Artificial General Intelligence as a form of both Deep Hype and as Futures Governance instrument at @mozilla.org Fest. Come by if you around! schedule.mozillafestival.org/session/159

If you’re at @mozilla.org Fest this Saturday, join @hypestudies.bsky.social for a conversation on hype as a tech governance instrument by other means. The discussion will be facilitated through the first version of our Hype Literacy Toolkit 🖖 🔗 schedule.mozillafestival.org/session/31

"Ten lossmaking artificial intelligence start-ups have gained close to $1tn in valuation over the past 12 months, an unprecedented increase that adds to fears about an inflating bubble in private markets that could spill over into the wider economy."

The weird & reactionary technopolitics of today are the result of 30+ years of debate among US technologists. Our paper with @arturocastro.bsky.social "Cryptofinancial Imaginaries" is out in the new issue of Journal of Cultural Economy. Thrilled to be part of this debate: tinyurl.com/24ptrbkn

And that's a wrap! @hypestudies.bsky.social conference over and out! 🫡Thank you so much to all the incredible people who attended. This is what academia can be 🫶

Final preparations for our conference! 🎩 We are tremendously excited to welcome all participants in-person and online tomorrow for the first conference on Hype Studies! The time has come 😊😊 Wishing safe travels to all those who are joining us from afar!

We are most honoured to host our book launch event for Neil Pollock and Robin Williams's deeply anticipated 'After Hype'!

A very special applause for our group's rising star Isa Luiten! Isa not only presented her amazing work on NewSpace and Hype from her forthcoming Thesis, but is also our tireless research assistant, keeping the Hype Studies group and conference in place. Thank you, Isa!

Fantastic panel today on 'AI Hype: Between Power and Resistance' with amazing contributions by Kat Fuller, @danmk.bsky.social, Tianqi Kou, Dana Calacci, Nasser Eledroos, and Jacek Mańko who also acted as stellar chair, debating power across multiple themes, from anti-trans hype to AGI!

What is deep hype? 🕳️ This week at @hypestudies.bsky.social Conference I'll present a paper where I define deep hype as a "long-term dynamic that projects civilisational transformation through uncertain futures, making its promises unverifiable in the present" arxiv.org/pdf/2508.19749

Join us at the hybrid keynote at the @hypestudies.bsky.social Conference by Gemma Milne, author of "Smoke & Mirrors: How Hype Obscures the Future and How to See Past It" Wednesday 10Sept from 17 to 18:30 CEST. Free with previous registration: framaforms.org/dont-believe...

The final programme and the abstract booklet for the @hypestudies.bsky.social Conference is out! Programme: hypestudies.org/media/pages/... Booklet hypestudies.org/media/pages/... Join us online at from 10-12/9 at hypestudies.org

Nuestro artículo de @techpolicypress.bsky.social sobre las políticas del hype en relación al capitalismo tecno-financiero y sus derivas autoritarias ha sido traducido al español en @elsaltodiario.com. www.elsaltodiario.com/atenea_cybor...

The phantom of the AI bubble bust is back. Jascha Bareis and I wrote for @techpolicypress.bsky.social about how hype is a political force, benefitting some while harming others. Hype literacy and @hypestudies.bsky.social matters: we need to learn who creates it, why, and how it shapes our futures.

'Finance, paranoia and the radicalisation of value' tank.tv/magazine/iss...

Want to participate in our Hype Studies Conference? Bear in mind that tomorrow is the last day to submit your proposal ⏰🔥🎉 Call for Abstracts and Projects: hypestudies.org/conference

What are sociotechnical fictions? In my new paper I explain how, unlike literary forms, such fictions operate within the contours of science and technology to bring the imaginary into reality -and how they do so through epistemic, aesthetic, affective and normative agencies. 🔗 shorturl.at/acsrK

🔥 Techno-authoritarianism has been brewing since at least the 1970s 🔥 In this new paper, @arturocastro.bsky.social and I trace how neoliberal theories—distrust in the state, private money, and the fetish of decentralisation—grounded the technical principles of contemporary cryptocurrencies.

If you happen to be in Rome next week, I'll be showing how speculative research, STS, and theory fiction can come together to inquire about techno-financial imagination and its toxic relation to the sacred and ineffable

Folks, this is going to be big: “Hype Studies is an emergent, transdisciplinary research arena aimed at inquiring hype as a powerful and pervasive phenomenon that influences economic trends, political agendas, media narratives, and technological developments.” hypestudies.org

What are *hype studies* about? We are a group exploring the frenzies, gurus, attention cycles and waves of excitement and disappointment we're experiencing when interacting with contemporary science and technology. To learn more, follow hypestudies.org P.S. Credit to Pierre Depaz for web design! ☀️

How to design with ancestrality towards metaphysical sovereignty? How does deciding what is real and what is not set us free from the miserable tales of success, competition, and techno-financial frameworks? How to re-enchant experience to sync with planetary temporalities? My latests article 🪷

AGI is the result of Venture Capital imagination, which turns into a normative vision of the future, pursued by researchers who see in this fictional promise a north star guiding their practice. This is an example of how the VC speculative mindset poisons technoscientific reason.

So it seems that free-market zealots need the state to impose monopolistic financial products because they can’t outcompete their rivals (e.g., Sam Altman’s Worldcoin) under the sacred rules of competition.

👾Fresh Call for Abstracts!👁️ Come visit #STSItalia in Milan this summer to share your research at our panel on Critical Hype Studies exploring the many sociopsychotechnoenvironmental faces of hype. Deadline: Feb 3. @imaginaries.bsky.social stsitalia.org/call-for-abs... stsitalia.org/wp-content/u...

Working on a paper that explains how Worldcoin—an allegedly critical infrastructure for the future of the AI-driven world—is based on fictitious visions that evoke fear and uncertainty to accelerate the transition towards a cyberlibertarian regime.

Since July a bunch of scholars has been discussing what Critical Hype Studies could be and the challenges it faces. @velocitygravity.bsky.social has created a starter pack featuring some of those engaging in the conversation: go.bsky.app/Sf4sW8k Join us!

Architecture I like: buried in vegetation and made to resemble ruins - thus ready for the future! www.dezeen.com/2023/12/05/a...

Two years ago, I published this article at on how computation and finance are transforming the social experience of time in an alien way. Today, I’m still asking myself how this is reshaping collective imagination and how it intoxicates our way of knowing. lab.cccb.org/en/chronopol...

I have just learned that the Venture Capital industry has positioned itself as a key partner in US defense. A notable example is Anduril, a company partly funded by Peter Thiel, who is spearheading this trend. Anduril is currently seeking to enter the European 'defense market'.

How deep planetary time can help to resolve the tensions between unsustainable technocratic growth and the dreams of an idealized past interfering with possible and potentially desirable futures? My interview to philosopher Armen Avaneissan for Weird Economies shorturl.at/mouIR