When hype polarises: the polarisation of moral evaluations around hyped innovations

Innovations such as AI are the subject of much hype in society. Burgeoning scholarship on hype and entrepreneurship has focused on the sustained high expectations and excitement that hyped innovations attract. This essay reorients extant scholarship by uncovering an unexplored phenomenon: the moral polarisation that regularly accompanies hyped innovations from the outset. We articulate how the emergence of hyped innovations triggers polarised moral views in society as audiences disagree about the innovation’s moral, rather than pragmatic, value, and what challenges this presents for the proponents of hyped innovations. We argue that this dynamic may emerge as the visibility generated by hype moves an innovation’s evaluation beyond experts to audiences relying on conflicting sources, while its framing as highly consequential shifts that evaluation from the technical plane to the moral one. Under these conditions, opposing views may harden into mutually delegitimising camps rather than mere differences of opinion. We illustrate this through the case of 5G technology, a hyped innovation that faced celebration and condemnation at once. Our essay outlines four promising research opportunities about the important topics of how moral polarisation emerges alongside hype, how innovative companies may navigate it, how processes of depolarisation unfold, and how individuals associated with hyped innovations experience the micro-dynamics of this morally charged situation.