Date: January 29, 2026 (Thursday)
Time: 5-6pm
Venue: Rm 10.13, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
Speaker: Professor Alice Huang, Western University
Abstract:
There is a literature across science and technology studies, sociology of science, and philosophy examining the phenomenon of hype in science and technology. While definitions of hypes vary, most accounts share a critical stance, viewing them as misleading or distorting scientific and public discourse. This paper takes a different approach by asking whether certain aspects of hyping might, under specific conditions, be beneficial. I consider hypes not as isolated episodes but as a communicative strategy for making choices under uncertainty. While individual instances of hypes are harmful and often short-lived, as a practice, hyping can nevertheless be efficient in allocating resources. I draw an analogy between aggressively promoting the potential of emerging technologies despite significant uncertainty, and the Upper Confidence Bound (UCB) algorithm in reinforcement learning, a strategy shown to perform well in problems involving multiple uncertain choices. By drawing this analogy, I identify the conditions under which hyping can function as a collective implementation of UCB in a multi-agent, distributed context. This framing also highlights the role of science communication as a mechanism for orchestrating public attention and helping shape the direction of scientific inquiry.
