A Myth of Progress
On hype cycles and how to break them by focussing on human needs
(Image: The Voltaire collection at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York)
“Do not hope that events will turn out the way you want, but welcome them in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.” — Epictetus
The first time you meet a hype cycle, you’re too young to know you’ve met one. It feels like progress. It feels inevitable.
The second time, you might feel déjà vu. A tool, a pattern, a paradigm promises to “replace” what came before. A few years later you realise it hasn’t replaced anything—it has just joined the chorus.
By the third time, you stop calling it déjà vu and start calling it history. You learn to see the cycles for what they are: not a ladder of progress, but a wheel.
The latest spin of that wheel is the claim that AI will “replace developers.” Baloney. The hype echoes earlier declarations: “CASE tools will replace engineers.” “No-code means no more developers.” Each time it’s the same story, dressed in different clothes. What AI — or, I prefer, Kent Beck’s term: The Genie — offers is not elimination but augmentation. A partner in the work, not an undertaker.
We mistake the wheel for a straight line because of the myth of progress. J. B. Bury described this myth in his Idea of Progress (1920): the belief that human history follows a linear trajectory toward some sort of perfection. Writers since—John Gray, Christopher Lasch, Mary Midgley—have all warned that this is a comforting story, not an iron law. Progress is not inevitable. It is not guaranteed. It is not even always preferable, because it is not even always progress.
The younger I was, the more convincing the myth felt. When everything is new, it looks like a ladder reaching upwards. As I got older I began to see the scaffolding—the same beams, the same supports, endlessly repurposed. The promises of each generation echo those of the last.
This is not cynicism. Not the rants of “In my day…”. It is maturity. The good news is that what survives is rarely the hype. What endures is what speaks most clearly to human need. Sometimes those needs are noble (communication, creativity, craft). Sometimes they are base (attention addiction on social media). But the human pull, not the technological push, is what determines what survives as time pushes relentlessly on.
Maturity is seeing beyond the myth. The path is not upwards. It is circular. Your job is to orient yourself within the cycle and to anchor on what matters most: the needs of humans, not the story of “inevitable progress.”
Some Practices to Consider
Spot the Cycle. Ask yourself: “Have I heard this promise before?”
Anchor on Needs. Focus on human outcomes, not tech novelty.
Use AI as Augmentation. Treat AI as a power tool, not a replacement for craftsmanship.
Balance Youth and Age. Value the excitement of fresh eyes and the wisdom of scarred ones.
Some things to avoid
Believing the marketing. Thinking AI, no-code, or the next thing will end developers.
Cynical dismissal. Rejecting everything as “just another cycle” and missing genuine new capabilities.
Ignoring needs. Building platforms that are clever but irrelevant to human problems.
A Helpful Checklist
Have I seen this hype before, in different form?
Am I being sold inevitability rather than possibility?
Does this solve a human problem, or is it novelty for novelty’s sake?
How will this tool augment, not replace, the creative work?
Some Examples
AI code generation: not the death of developers, but a productivity partner—like the compiler or IDE before it.
No-code platforms: not a replacement, but an extension of who can participate in software creation.
Progress in software is not linear advancement but cyclical rediscovery, tempered by human need.
The hype cycle is a recurring feature of technology. From structured programming to object-orientation, from microservices to serverless, from CASE to AI, from remoting to … more remoting—the stories repeat.
Progress is not linear. Bury’s framing shows us that the myth of progress is cultural, not empirical. It comforts us by promising that the future is always “better.”
Maturity means pattern recognition. The older you get in tech, the less impressed you are by novelty. You’ve seen the cycle before, in different clothes.
Survival is human-centred. What remains useful are those technologies that solve enduring human problems.
Don’t mistake hype for destiny. Anchor on human problems, embrace augmentation, and learn the cycles. That is maturity.
Further Reading
J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress (1920)
Mary Midgley, The Myths We Live By (2003)
Gartner’s Hype Cycle reports — or almost anything by McKinsey — (for a wry smile)