Palantir CTO Criticizes AI-Utopian Beliefs as a “Mass Psychosis”

Summary

Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar criticizes what he sees as a religious quality in some Silicon Valley beliefs about artificial general intelligence. In remarks quoted in the post, he says some people have filled a “God-shaped hole” with an imagined machine god of AGI. He cites a claim that some AI researchers have started smoking to signal how strongly they believe AI will cure cancer, presenting the behavior as an example of collective commitment rather than evidence. Sankar characterizes this attitude as a form of “mass psychosis” or social delusion. The interviewer, Margaret Brennan, challenges the smoking example as nonsensical, while Sankar frames his broader argument as a theological critique that should be weighed against empirical facts about AI. The excerpt therefore reports a critique of AI-related cultural faith, not a study establishing that researchers smoke or that AI will cure cancer.