Palantir CTO Says Some AI Researchers Smoke to Signal Faith in AI Cures

Summary

Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar said in a CBS Face the Nation interview that some AI researchers have taken up smoking as a signal that they believe AI will soon cure cancer. He described the alleged behavior as a bet that future AI breakthroughs will treat any illness caused by smoking, and criticized it as a form of mass psychosis or social delusion. Sankar connected the claim to effective altruism, which he characterized as a long-term, utilitarian philosophy that has influenced debates about AI safety and catastrophic risks. He said there are roughly 2,000 AI researchers in the United States and suggested many share that worldview, while portraying some Silicon Valley AI thinking as a quasi-religious faith in an eventual machine god. A former cancer researcher interviewed by The Register rejected the logic of the bet and noted that even AI-assisted drug discovery would not make a new cancer treatment available immediately. Developing and introducing a drug can take several years, and tumors may still develop resistance. The article also notes that Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis previously predicted that 2025 would be the year people began taking AI-designed pills, a milestone that had not occurred by the time of publication. The report presents Sankar’s claims as controversial commentary rather than evidence that AI researchers are actually smoking for this reason.