Ted versus The Media Lab [video]
This is well known in academia and exist outside of Media Lab as well. For example, I asked a professor (not associated with the Media Lab) about using hype to get grants. He said: "It's just like the stock market right, money goes here, it goes there, it's all story telling. I have to tell stories too because if I don't, then other people will tell this story and get the money. But I think I can use it better than other people." This is a very "well-respected" Ivy League professor in applied machine learning.<p>As for the Media Lab, they're really selling the image of technological progress. And Corporate entities find value in this exact <i>image</i> because they're just reselling it to their shareholders, many of whom are dumb money. But the image is required to attract idealistic and clueless grad students who'll sacrifice their lives and sanity to make demos. I know several people who graduated from the Media Lab with masters/doctorates, and they are all of this exact mold: taken captive by pipe dreams and their own delusions of what this stuff could do, while their advisors are churning through students and packaging new narratives.