The Download: the worst technology of 2025, and Sam Altman's AI hype

Welcome to our annual list of the worst, least successful, and simply dumbest technologies of the year. We like to think there's a lesson in every technological misadventure. But when technology becomes dependent on power, sometimes the takeaway is simpler: it would have been better to stay away. Here are some of the more notable ones . Each time you've heard a borderline outlandish idea of what AI will be capable of, it often turns out that Sam Altman was, if not the first to articulate it, at least the most persuasive and influential voice behind it. For more than a decade he has been known in Silicon Valley as a world-class fundraiser and persuader.