My guess is money. The VC funded startup world seems to be a greater fool game. While there's some legit stuff going on in the field, much of what I see people talking about wrt LLMs is just a way to separate fools from their money.

It's a new enough field, however, that it's hard to keep up with all the latest projects.

So you mix the urge for free money from some corners of the valley with people legitimately not knowing if something is horse manure and it seems like the perfect storm for hype.