Ask HN: Why is everyone here so AI-hyped?

2•fandorin•2h ago

I get it - LLMs do have some value, but not as much as everyone (especially those from AI labs) is trying to pitch. I can't help thinking that it's so obvious we are almost at the very top of this bubble - but here it feels like the majority of HN doesn't think like that...

Yet just in 2026 we had:

- AI.com was sold for $70M - Crypto.com founder bought it to launch yet another "personal AI agent" platform, which promptly crashed during its Super Bowl ad debut.

- MoltBook-mania - a Reddit clone where AI bots talk to each other, flooded with crypto scams and "AI consciousness" posts. 250,000+ bot posts burning compute for what actual value? [0]

- OpenClaw - a "super open-source AI agent" that is a security nightmare.

- GPT-5.3-Codex and Opus 2.6 were released. Reviewers note they're struggling to find tasks the previous versions couldn't handle. The improvements are incremental at best.

I understand there are legitimate use cases for LLMs, but the hype-to-utility ratio seems completely out of whack.

Am I not seeing something?

[0] https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/02/06/1132448/moltbook-was-peak-ai-theater/

Comments

minimaxir•2h ago

You are selection biasing towards the most extreme cases of AI absurdity.

> GPT-5.3-Codex and Opus 2.6 were released. Reviewers note they're struggling to find tasks the previous versions couldn't handle. The improvements are incremental at best.

I have not seen any claims of this other than Opus 4.6 being weirdly token-hungry.

peschu•1h ago

maybe people are not hyped, just benefitting from it

Bnjoroge•1h ago

The human brain seeks novelty and excitement. It’s why new projects are always exciting, new companies to join etc. This obviously extends to most trends. Cloud, crypto, AI. Obviously, there’s some utility(debatably with crypto), but overall it’s moreso that new stuff is just more fun and interesting

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