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cereal_burpist [soylentnews.org] writes:

1. "He did not name a single researcher, cite a survey, or explain how he knows."
2. "Palantir sells data-analysis software to governments and militaries. Most of its business relies on AI."

Nothing says "I trust the future of medicine" quite like lighting a Marlboro and waiting for the chatbot to fix your lungs. That is the habit Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar says is spreading among AI researchers, who have supposedly started smoking cigarettes to prove how confident they are that AI will cure cancer.

"So many AI researchers have started smoking as a way of signaling to other researchers how much they believe in AI," Sankar said in an interview on CBS News' "Face the Nation" [cbsnews.com] on Sunday. "I believe so much in AI that it's going to cure cancer. So I'm showing you my chips are all in."

He pointed to FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried as the effective altruist most Americans know, calling the movement a "millenarian doomsday cult." He also invoked Pascal's idea of a god-shaped hole in every human heart, which he suggested some of these researchers are filling with a machine god called AGI.

[...] (Facts & stats about 'smoking is bad', cancer, hatred for AI, etc)

So naturally, due to one-upmanship (aka human nature), next we'll hear that $AI-Corp is actively promoting unprotected sex and crack cocaine: Because AI will also cure HIV/AIDS and drug addiction! Imagine their next office holiday party...

Also, [solemn tone] I wish we could enjoy a comment from MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) about "millenarian doomsday cult." RIP, sir.

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