Palantir CTO says some AI researchers have taken up smoking to signal faith in AI
In an interview aired Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation, Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar claimed that some AI researchers have started smoking as a way to show fellow researchers they are "all in" on the belief that AI will eventually cure cancer. Sankar described the mindset as a kind of "mass psychosis social delusion" around AI, or AGI as he calls it, invoking Pascal's idea of a God-shaped hole in every person. TechSpot's commentary notes the claim is unverified and comes from a single account, and points out that smoking itself causes multiple types of cancer, undercutting the logic even if AI did help produce treatments; it also mentions a reported AI-developed drug that showed signs of slowing aging, with caveats.
It says more about faith-driven narratives and culture in the AI industry than about any technical progress.