Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar says some researchers have started smoking to demonstrate their faith in AI — and criticizes what he calls a “mass psychosis” in Silicon Valley.
What You Need to Know
- The claim: In a CBS interview (Oct 11), Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar said some AI researchers have taken up smoking to signal to their peers that they’re “all in” on the technology—including the promise that it will cure cancer.
- The irony: Smoking is a leading cause of cancer. Anyone lighting up in anticipation of a “future cure” may not live long enough to see it—and Sankar offered no data proving the practice is real or widespread.
- The context: In his view, this reflects a “mass psychosis”: segments of Silicon Valley have turned AGI into a “machine god,” replacing technical analysis with near-religious faith.
Will artificial intelligence cure cancer? Some researchers are reportedly so sure it will that they’ve started smoking to prove how much they believe in the technology.
That’s the claim from Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer of Palantir, the company that builds software for governments and militaries. Sankar is also a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve.
In an Oct. 11 interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, Sankar said these researchers use smoking “as a way of signaling to other researchers how much they believe in AI.” The idea, he said, is to show they’re all in on a technology they hope will find a cure for cancer.
Even if AI did help produce treatments for some cancers, smoking causes many other types of the disease, along with non-cancerous illnesses that are just as deadly. And any new treatment would take years to get through clinical trials. The irony is hard to miss: smokers betting on a cure may not live long enough to see it.
The remark caught even the show’s host, Margaret Brennan, off guard. Baffled, she cut in: “What? That makes no sense.”
Sankar then laid out the logic he attributes to these researchers: “I believe so much in AI that it’s going to cure cancer. So I will, I’m showing you my chips are all in.”
To Sankar, it’s a case of “mass psychosis,” and not one he says he shares.
It’s unclear how many researchers have actually adopted the habit, and Sankar’s comments don’t establish that it’s widespread. He offered no data or studies to back up the claim.
The AI “Machine God”
For Sankar, the story points to something bigger: a quasi-religious faith in artificial intelligence among certain circles in Silicon Valley.
He took particular aim at what he called the “machine God of AGI.” The acronym stands for artificial general intelligence, the concept of systems capable of performing a wide range of intellectual tasks at close to human levels.
Sankar tied this mindset to an idea from the philosopher Blaise Pascal: that every person has a “god-shaped hole in their heart.” Many in Silicon Valley, he said, have filled that hole with the “machine God of AGI,” a faith that has turned what should be a scientific debate into a “theological critique.”
Some people, he said, have come to see the technology as a force that will determine humanity’s future. Sankar called this mindset a “mass psychosis” and a “social delusion,” arguing that it can warp how society weighs AI’s risks and benefits.
He linked this view to Effective Altruism, which he described as a “millenarian doomsday cult meets messianic complex.” According to Sankar, there are roughly 2,000 AI researchers in America, and the vast majority of them share this worldview. He offered no independent data to support that estimate.
Can AI Really Cure Cancer?
Researchers are already exploring AI as a tool for discovering drugs, analyzing medical data, and developing treatments. That doesn’t mean a universal cure for cancer exists, or that one is about to be found.
Cancer is not one disease but hundreds, each with its own characteristics and its own response to treatment, which vary by cancer type and by patient. Even when a technology helps identify a promising treatment, studies and clinical trials are still needed to establish its safety and efficacy.
Sankar’s comments show just how much confidence some in the field may place in AI’s potential. But believing technology will find cures someday is not the same as having evidence that it will do so soon, and it certainly doesn’t erase the well-known risks of cigarettes.
Source: CBS News Transcript