Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar says some AI researchers smoke to signal belief in AI

Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar said on CBS's Face the Nation that some AI researchers smoke to signal how strongly they believe AI will cure cancer, calling the behavior a mass psychosis.

Gizmodo reports the remark and cites a Business Insider article on smoking in Silicon Valley, along with a quote from Avi Schiffmann saying AI robots are supposed to cure lung cancer. Gizmodo says X users responded with jokes, and one said AI had made them more cavalier about smoking. The report does not include evidence that researchers smoke for this reason.