Palantir CTO Warns AI 'Doomsday' Beliefs Are Driving Researchers to Smoke
Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar told CBS News that some AI researchers have started smoking to signal their absolute belief that AI will cure cancer. He used this anecdote to criticize what he called a 'mass psychosis' and 'social delusion' surrounding AI, arguing that Silicon Valley has filled a 'God-shaped hole' in human hearts with a quasi-religious faith in artificial general intelligence (AGI). Sankar dismissed AI safety advocates as part of a 'millenarian doomsday cult' linked to effective altruism, asserting that their warnings are theological rather than scientific. He argued that existing laws, such as FDA regulations and product liability frameworks, are sufficient to manage AI risks, rejecting the need for new, specific AI guardrails. Sankar also defended the use of AI in military contexts, blaming human error for recent incidents like the Minab school strike in Iran, and noted that the Pentagon has already replaced Anthropic’s AI models with no operational impact.
