The Washington Post's 'Crypto winter' has come. And it's looking more like an ice age starts with:

A year ago, the crypto world was booming, with prices for Bitcoin and Ethereum at all-time highs, celebrities stumbling over each other to promote expensive digital art, and logos from blockchain companies gracing sports stadiums and Super Bowl ads. That era is over.

And it's true. 

Thanks to a long list of frauds and criminal schemes - topped off by FTX's collapse - the crypto hype cycle is over. For now.

And replacing it is a major new hype cycle for generative A.I. 

Generative A.I. - an umbrella term for A.I. that doesn't just analyze existing data but creates new text, images, videos, code snippets, and more - had already established itself as tech's latest big thing.

ChatgptBut with the launch of ChatGPT, the hype around generative A.I. has reached a fevered pitch.

The Guardian's What is A.I. chatbot phenomenon ChatGPT and could it replace humans? does an excellent job explaining what ChatGPT is. Key quote:

ChatGPT is a prototype dialogue-based A.I. chatbot capable of understanding natural human language and generating impressively detailed human-like written text.

In addition to answering questions in a human-like way, ChatGPT also scans the Internet for information and data related to the topic.

For example, we asked ChatGPT what a technology winter is. Here's its answer:

A technology winter, also sometimes referred to as a "tech winter" or a "capital winter," is a period of time when investment in, and enthusiasm for, new technologies and startups cools off ... Technology winters can have significant impacts on the technology industry, including reduced innovation and slower adoption of new technologies. However, they can also be followed by a "technology spring" or a period of renewed growth and innovation.

Not a bad answer.

A.I. has gone through multiple technology winters, with the first happening in the 1980s and an extended winter running from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s or so.  

Yet now, A.I. is widely used in business and science - and it's experiencing yet another technology spring.  

We expect Crypto, despite it's current problems, will also eventually have its own new spring.