Andreu Belsunces Gonçalves - Hype and the Cyberlibertarian Transition: A Call for Hype Assessment [ETAC6 presentation]

Hype and the Cyberlibertarian Transition: A Call for Hype Assessment ANDREU BELSUNCES GONÇALVES [email protected] ETAC 6 - Vienna - 4th June 2025 SHOULD TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT BE NON-PARTISAN WHEN HEGEMONIC TECHNOFINANCIAL ACTORS ARE PUSHING TOWARDS ANTI-DEMOCRATIC, AUTHORITARIAN FUTURES Feb 28th 2025 - The Economist TECHNOFINANCIAL CONTEXT OF HYPE Economic Speculation Technological Speculation Venture Capital & Entrepreneur Culture Political Subject: Homo Speculans (Komporozos-Athanassiou 2022) Novelty Trap (Reyner 2004) CYBERLIBERTARIANISM ➔Techno-Elitism ➔Anti-State Ideology ➔Free-Market Supremacy ➔Radical Individualism ➔Depoliticisation Through Code ➔Alignment and Rebranding of the Far-Right ➔Conspirational Thinking ➔Antagonism to Social Justice Movements Winner (1997); Golumbia (2016, 2024) Epistemic Constructs a sense of certainty about inherently uncertain futures. It projects speculative futures as inevitable and collapses the space for doubt or alternative framings. Informational Undermines responsible communication by producing false inferences and unreliable predictions. It fails to meet evidentiary and ethical standards appropriate to contexts involving risk, public understanding, and decision-making. Discursive Driven through exaggeration, buzzwords, and charismatic storytelling. Interpretative flexibility and ambiguity are strategic resources. Affective Build-up: excitement, hope, anticipation, and urgency. Decline:fear, frustration, and disillusionment. Affective charge sustains participation and belief in promissory visions. Normative Frames specific futures as desirable, necessary, or inevitable. It implicitly de-legitimises alternatives, reinforcing dominant values and closing down plural futures. Implies alignment of agendas and resources among stakeholders. Material Influences the allocation of resources, shapes innovation agendas, and mobilises investment. Shape infrastructural commitments and urban landscapes. Temporal Accelerated chronopolitics pressure actors to act quickly to avoid missing out. It generates urgency by compressing temporal horizons and projecting imminent breakthroughs. Political Benefits specific actors (instead of others), shaping regulation, public discourse, funding, and innovation agendas. HYPE IS PERFORMATIVE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION Two fields for Hype Assessment Kristen Intemann (2022) ➔Whether something counts as hype depends on how we judge what counts as a benefit or a risk, and which ones are important to talk about. ➔Avoid that possible benefits and risks encourage false inferences and unreliable predictions. ➔Define which risks and benefits matter most for decision making to avoid downplaying important risks ➔Define criteria that allow for the highlighting of particular benefits ➔Make sure claims are backed by enough evidence, especially when mistakes could be risky. AI R&D Savannah Thais (2024) ➔Diversified Funding and Research ➔Regulatory Action ➔Technical Literacy and Best Practices Entrepreneurial culture stimulates hype to maximising profit Media creates hype to attract audience Entrepreneurial culture stimulates hype to maximising profit Media creates hype to attract audience Hype is not accidental but constitutive ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Two fields for Hype Assessment Savannah Thais (2024) ➔Diversified Funding and Research - Prioritising funding for more diverse research areas that complement, rather than compete with, industry. - Use more precise language to describe ML and AI instead of vague, magical language - Avoid making unsubstantiated claims about an AI system’s reasoning abilities and instead work towards developing rigorous tests to characterize such abilities ➔Regulatory Action - Standardized third-party audits - Mandated transparency - Rely on existing consumer protection, product liability, and fraud law to address harmful AI hype ➔Technical Literacy and Best Practices - Reporters covering AI should have technical knowledge to avoid spreading AI hype - Improved technical literacy amongst population to interrogate AI promises and make AI systems accountable