Hype Cycles, Moral Panic, and the Epistemics of Consequential Technology

Abstract

The Gartner Hype Cycle is widely used as a descriptive model for how public and market enthusiasm around emerging technologies evolves over time. It assumes a broadly homogeneous audience moving through sequential phases: a peak of inflated expectations, followed by a trough of disillusionment, and eventually a plateau of productivity. This paper argues that the model is structurally incomplete for technologies with significant social, political, or ethical consequences. In those cases, a second, oppositional response curve emerges simultaneously with the hype peak, driven by anticipated harm rather than disappointed expectations. Drawing on Stanley Cohen's moral panic framework and Sheila Jasanoff's concept of sociotechnical imaginaries, we propose a dual-curve model in which techno-optimists (TOs) and concerned skeptics (CSs) occupy opposite poles of a polarized response landscape. A third population, cautious optimists (COs), does not ride a third curve but instead serves as an analytical lens on the space between the two: defined by a distinct epistemology rather than a directional response trajectory. The fundamental fault line runs between narrative-first and evidence-first reasoning. That distinction has implications for how technology governance and public discourse might be more productively structured.

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