Palantir CTO reveals AI researchers are taking up smoking to signal to other researchers that they believe AI will cure cancer--and calls it a “mass psychosis”

Shyam Sankar (CTO): “But if you understand that it’s actually a theological critique, then you can kind of weigh it against the empirical facts of what is actually happening out there.

“I think there’s a profound truth to Pascal’s saying that every human has a God-shaped hole in their heart. And it’s important to understand that many of these folks in Silicon Valley who are building this technology have filled that hole with the machine god of AGI.

“And I mean, there’s so many interesting stories around this. For example, so many AI researchers have started smoking as a way of signaling to other researchers how much they believe in AI.”

Margaret Brennan: “What? That makes no sense. What do you think?”

Shyam Sankar: “I believe so much in AI that it’s going to cure cancer. So I’m showing you my chips are all in. So there is kind of this mass psychosis, social delusion around it.”

Source: Face The Nation with Margaret Brennan's interview with Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar. Aired on Oct. 11, 2026.