You might say that the biggest AI startups are led by professionally unreliable narrators , who theorize about the future of their companies — and their industry, and humanity in general — with a variety of clear but sometimes conflicting biases. This can make it somewhat hard, from the outside, to figure out which vision investors are banking on, beyond a general fear of missing out: Mass labor automation ? AI-assisted research? Mainstream search-like products that could unseat Google? Digital pals that occasionally sexualize young users or tell you how to kill yourself?

Lately, though, there have been a few shifts in the industry. One is vibey: A slightly underwhelming GPT-5 release, accompanied by a change in rhetoric from some AI leaders, has shifted the conversation away fr

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