Palantir's CTO says some AI researchers smoke to show their faith that AI will cure cancer

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According to the article, Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar said in an interview on CBS News' "Face the Nation," aired on a Sunday, that "a lot of AI researchers have started smoking as a way of signaling to other researchers how much they believe in AI." According to Sankar, the reasoning would be: "I believe so much in AI, that it's going to cure cancer, that I'm showing you I'm all in."

The outlet itself notes that Sankar did not name any researchers or provide evidence for the claim. It also points out that smoking remains one of the leading causes of preventable disease and death, and that no AI breakthrough has eliminated the risks of tobacco.

Business Insider links the remark to a trend it had already reported on. According to an earlier piece by the outlet, a small group of founders, engineers and investors have taken up cigarettes in an industry known for optimizing its health with cold plunges, sleep tracking and peptide treatments. For some, the smoke break is a networking opportunity. Others use it to appear more relaxed and less polished than the typical startup founder. Avi Schiffmann, founder of AI device startup Friend, previously told the outlet: "By the time you get lung cancer, our AI robots are supposed to have cured it."

In the same interview, Sankar used the anecdote to criticize what he called a "collective psychosis" and "societal delusion" in Silicon Valley around AI. He took aim at AI safety advocates, whom he accused of treating artificial general intelligence as a "machine god." He cited Blaise Pascal's idea of a "God-shaped hole" in the human heart and said that many of those building the technology have filled it with "the machine god of AGI."

The rest of the article was not available in the download.