Welcome to our annual list of the worst, least successful, and downright dumbest technologies of the year.
We like to think that there is a lesson in every technology incident. But when technology becomes dependent on power, sometimes the conclusion is simpler: it would be better to stay away.
Regrets—there were several in 2025. Here are some of the most notable ones.
—Antonio Regalado
A Brief History of the Sam Altman Hype
Whenever you hear a wildly outlandish idea about what AI would be capable of, it often turns out that Sam Altman was, if not the first person to formulate it, then at least the most compelling and influential voice behind it.
For more than a decade, he has been known in Silicon Valley as a world-class fundraising and persuasion expert. Overall, Altman's words set the agenda. What he says about AI is rarely proven when he says it, but it does convince us of one thing: the path we're on with AI can lead to both great and terrifying things, and it will take epic sums for OpenAI to steer it in the right direction. In this sense, he is a real hype man.
To understand how his voice has impacted our understanding of what AI is capable of, we've read almost everything he's ever said about the technology. His own words trace how we arrived here. Read the full story.
—James O'Donnell
This story is part of our new Hype Correction package, a collection of stories designed to help you change your expectations about what AI makes possible and what it doesn't. See the rest of the package here.
Can AI really help us discover new materials?
One of my favorite stories in Hype correction the package arrived from my colleague David Rothman, who took a closer look at AI for materials research. AI could transform the process of discovering new materials—innovations that could be especially useful in the world of climate technology, where new batteries, semiconductors, magnets, and more are needed.
But the field has yet to prove that it can produce materials that are truly new and useful. Can AI really speed up materials research? And what will it look like? Read the full story.
