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Comment by mberning | Hacker News Reader

The worst offenders in recent memory are self driving cars, block chain, VR, and “the metaverse”.

NFTs, Theranos, AR, AI/ML, No/Low Code.

"No Man's Sky" is also an interesting case study.

Not sure how AR, AI/ML or even No Mans Sky belong to the same list as NFTs. No Mans Sky has delivered on many things over time and chances are you used AI for something today even if you aren't aware of it. Maybe you mean AGI and how near in the future some promised it to be. AR is too early to even judge, with only Microsoft investing into it out of the reputable companies AFAIK.

I do think there's a spectrum of pathological hype. On the one hand, there is manufactured hype, the NFTs and Theranos-end of the spectrum; on the other hand, there is hype from mismanaged expectations, the NMS side of the spectrum.

While NMS did eventually get their act together, what they delivered on launch was very much not aligned with the expectations.

AI solutions are hyped because they are AI solutions, not because of what they actually deliver. It's not that it has no uses, but the promises do not match up with the reality. Often it's enough to solve an already previously solved problem with AI to generate hype around a product, even if the AI solution is strictly worse than what's already on the market.

"No Man's Sky" is a fascinating example. I was really worried that was going to be a repeat of Spore.

Cyberpunk 2077

> “the metaverse”

I’m probably in some kind of bubble, but is that hyped? I mainly hear about it on HN, maybe a bunch of joking off-hand comments on Reddit. No one else seem to care about it at all. So, my bubble in Germany, or is it actually a thing in the USA?

Even fairly mainstream news already went on about how the Microsoft acquisition of Activision is all about Microsoft getting ready for metaverse.

I gave up on German tech news 5 years ago.

They're always behind.

As someone whose German is rusty and is try to not lose it, what kind of German media you think is worth the trouble?, in other words, publications where you will find insights that are not simply a repetition/regurgitation of what it is said in English.

I’d say that depends on what kind of information you want? For tech it’s hard. While I don’t like them, heise [0] has decent news. For general news, Spiegel [1] or FAZ [2] are some big ones, getting scoops once in a while that get rehashed by the international media.

[0]: https://heise.de

[1]: https://spiegel.de/

[2]: https://www.faz.net/

Metaverse is something that is happening for a long time now. The Zuckerberg-Metaverse is just the latest step in this development that gave the fire new fuel. Maybe because of this slow burning hype the general impression of it is rather low.

One of the largest companies in the world has recently renamed itself Meta (verse is strongly implied), so on some level it must have a decent amount of hype.

Self-driving cars, yes, but I'd say AI/ML in general reached at least level 3/4 at some point over the past few years. Seems to be cooling off a bit these days, though.

What about 3D printing ? It’s tame now but I remember how it was supposed to change a lot of things in our every day life.

I know a few people who make movie props - for their use case, 3D printing has basically displaced other ways of making practical props.

I think it has also revolutionised the industrial/product design/small batch manufacturing processes.

Another huge potentiality is metal 3D printing. Many aerospace companies consider 3D printed parts the future of rocketry/aircrafts.

3D TV.

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