AI hype is cooling fast as investors question valuations, startups look absurd, and security flaws steal headlines. Here’s what the backlash really means.
AI was supposed to either mint trillionaires or turn us all into paperclips. Yet in the last three hours, the loudest voices on finance Twitter, tech forums, and security blogs are saying the same thing: the fever is breaking. Let’s dig into why the hype is cooling and what it means for the rest of us.
The Chill in the Air
Remember when every headline screamed that AI would either save the world or end it by Tuesday? That fever is finally breaking. Over the last three hours, investors, developers, and skeptics have been trading the same blunt question on social feeds: is the AI hype train finally running out of steam?
Market charts, viral threads, and whistle-blower leaks are all pointing to the same story—expectations are cooling, money is hesitating, and the “next big thing” is starting to look like last season’s buzzword. If you’ve felt whiplash from the endless promises of superintelligence, you’re not alone. Let’s unpack what’s really happening right now.
Investors Tap the Brakes
Spencer Hakimian, a global macro investor, dropped a chart this morning that looks like a ski slope. It tracks major AI-linked stocks over the past month, and the trend is unmistakably downward. Investors who once threw cash at anything labeled “neural” are suddenly asking hard questions about actual revenue.
Why the pullback? Three quick signals:
• Quarterly earnings missed lofty projections.
• Venture rounds are taking longer to close.
• Headlines shifted from “breakthrough” to “regulatory scrutiny.”
The takeaway isn’t that AI is doomed—it’s that the market is demanding proof, not pitch decks. When capital gets picky, hype deflates faster than a punctured balloon.
Peak Absurdity on Display
Meanwhile, tech veteran Gergely Orosz went viral for calling out the parade of bizarre startups still landing millions. AI-powered mattresses? Intelligent jewelry? His thread reads like satire, except the funding rounds are real.
Orosz argues we’ve reached peak absurdity, the moment when gimmicks get funded simply because they contain the letters A and I. He compares it to the dot-com era’s pet-food websites—fun until the music stops.
The danger isn’t just wasted money. Every ridiculous launch makes the public more cynical, which in turn makes legitimate breakthroughs harder to recognize. When everything is revolutionary, nothing is.
Security Flaws Steal the Spotlight
While headlines debate valuations, Brave Software quietly exposed a darker side. Their security team found that Perplexity’s AI browser agent, Comet, can leak user credentials through poorly sandboxed scripts.
Imagine an assistant that books your flights, then accidentally tweets your credit-card number. That’s not sci-fi—it’s a proof-of-concept released this afternoon. Brave’s report shows how autonomous agents, marketed as the path to AGI, still trip over basic privacy guardrails.
The debate splits two ways:
• Builders say bugs are inevitable and fixable.
• Critics warn that rushing beta-grade agents into everyday tools invites mass surveillance.
Either way, the incident is a sobering reminder that intelligence without oversight can still be pretty dumb.
What Comes After the Hype
So where does this leave the average person? If you’re a developer worried about job displacement, breathe. Gaurav Sen’s latest thread argues that current models are powerful assistants, not replacements. They accelerate coding, but they still hallucinate and miss edge cases that human intuition catches.
For investors, the cooling period is healthy. Capital will flow toward teams who ship measurable value instead of vaporware. For users, it’s a chance to demand transparency before handing over more data.
Bottom line: the AI story isn’t ending—it’s maturing. The question now isn’t who can shout “superintelligence” the loudest, but who can deliver tools that actually work without wrecking privacy or the economy.
Ready to separate signal from noise? Keep asking who benefits, what’s proven, and why the hype feels urgent. The real revolution might be quieter than we expected—and that’s perfectly fine.
