Tech Policy Press ArticlePublished on 27.08.2025

How can society establish hype literacy?

Together with Andreu Belsunces, Dr. Jascha Bareis authored an essay published on August 21, 2025, at Techpolicy.press.

The article argues that there are signs indicating that recent enthusiasm for tech stocks driven by the promise of generative AI is beginning to wane. Looking at a longer period of development, from the dotcom bust twenty-five years ago to the current AI boom, technology hype continues to shape the global economy as well as politics and culture. Far from being a neutral byproduct of technology adoption cycles, hype is a deliberate project that steers the collective imagination for what is possible towards futures that often benefit elites. To resist hype and the ways in which it rewards the powerful and abets authoritarianism, the authors argue that society must recognize hype not just as an economic or a technological phenomenon, but as a political one.

Read the article: Expanding Hype Literacy to Protect Democracy
The text also appeared in German with the JACOBIN, in Portuguese with JACOBINA, and in Spanish with EL SALTO.

Dr. Bareis is a senior researcher in Prof. Dr. Jobin's group, working on the SNSF-funded project "Performing Artificial Intelligence: Governance, Agency, Action–An Interdisciplinary Inquiry".