THIS was the year when two of Silicon Valley’s biggest hype blimps – cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence – were deflated by drama. First came the downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried, whose shady cryptocurrency empire landed him in court, where he was convicted of fraud and conspiracy. During his trial, witnesses and evidence revealed that Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange FTX was siphoning billions of dollars from unwitting investors into one of his other assets, a cryptocurrency trading firm called Alameda Research.

A few weeks later, the other Silicon Valley Sam – Sam Altman – went through a corporate melodrama. Altman is CEO of OpenAI, maker…