--- title: Beyond the AI Hype: What's Real, What's Next - Richard... description: A comprehensive historical overview of AI development from the 1950s to 2025, examining the hype cycle, economic incentives, and societal impacts. Traces the... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/beyond-the-ai-hype-what-s-real-what-s-next---richard-campbell---ndc-london-2026-tbboooan7 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Beyond the AI Hype: What's Real, What's Next - Richard Campbell - NDC London 2026 | daily.dev og:description: A comprehensive historical overview of AI development from the 1950s to 2025, examining the hype cycle, economic incentives, and societal impacts. Traces the... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/beyond-the-ai-hype-what-s-real-what-s-next---richard-campbell---ndc-london-2026-tbboooan7 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/tbBooOAn7.png og:image:alt: Beyond the AI Hype: What's Real, What's Next - Richard Campbell - NDC London 2026 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Beyond the AI Hype: What's Real, What's Next - Richard Campbell - NDC London 2026 **[NDC Conferences](https://daily.dev/sources/ndc)** · 51 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A comprehensive historical overview of AI development from the 1950s to 2025, examining the hype cycle, economic incentives, and societal impacts. Traces the evolution from early neural networks through GPT models, exploring how marketing, investment pressures, and data center economics have driven the current AI boom. Discusses both harmful applications (mental health impacts, deepfakes, manipulation) and beneficial uses (protein folding breakthroughs via AlphaFold). Argues we're at the bottom of the hype cycle trough, with tech giants creating artificial urgency to justify massive infrastructure spending. Emphasizes that developers ultimately choose how these tools are used, with responsibility for ethical implementation. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Five things you need to know about AI](https://daily.dev/posts/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-ai-echirll6s) · MIT Technology Review · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai), [#machine-learning](https://daily.dev/tags/machine-learning), [#openai](https://daily.dev/tags/openai), [#ethics](https://daily.dev/tags/ethics), [#gpt](https://daily.dev/tags/gpt) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/beyond-the-ai-hype-what-s-real-what-s-next---richard-campbell---ndc-london-2026-tbboooan7) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Beyond the AI Hype: What's Real, What's Next - Richard Campbell - NDC London 2026","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/beyond-the-ai-hype-what-s-real-what-s-next---richard-campbell---ndc-london-2026-tbboooan7","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/beyond-the-ai-hype-what-s-real-what-s-next---richard-campbell---ndc-london-2026-tbboooan7"},"datePublished":"2026-02-09T15:05:27.925Z","dateModified":"2026-02-09T15:05:49.414Z","description":"A comprehensive historical overview of AI development from the 1950s to 2025, examining the hype cycle, economic incentives, and societal impacts. 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