Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar stated that many AI researchers have started smoking as a way to show other researchers how much they believe in AI.
"So many AI researchers have started smoking as a way to signal to other researchers how much they believe in AI," Sankar said in an interview with CBS News's Face the Nation on Sunday. "I have such strong confidence in AI that it will cure cancer. So I'm telling you, I've put all my chips on the table."
He did not name any particular researcher, nor did he cite any surveys, or explain how he came to know this claim. When the host Margaret Brennan asked him why he was so concerned about this topic, he made these remarks in response.
He pointed his criticism at the founder of FTX, Sam Bankman - Fried, calling this representative of effective altruism the same person known to most Americans, and labeled this movement as a "millennium-end cult." He also mentioned Pascal's view that there is an "empty space in everyone's heart shaped like God," and implied that some researchers are using a machine god named AGI to fill this void.
However, medical records do not support this argument. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States states that smoking is responsible for about one-third of cancer deaths in the country, and cigarette smoke contains at least 69 known carcinogenic chemicals.
The organization stated that smokers have about 25 times the risk of developing lung cancer compared to non-smokers. Quitting smoking can reduce the risk of 12 types of cancer, and after 10 to 15 years of not smoking, the additional risk of lung cancer is reduced by half.
In this industry, linking AI with curing cancer is nothing new. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei stated in August that claiming AI will cure cancer has become “more of a cliché than an inspiring statement,” and only by truly curing cancer can one win the public’s trust.
"Secondly, regarding the statement about AI, I disagree that my views have been overly negatively portrayed. In fact, it is roughly balanced between risk and reward: I have written separate articles discussing both aspects; even in interviews where I talked about risk, I..." – Dario Amodei (@DarioAmodei), August 15, 2026
This trust is inherently fragile. According to a poll cited by Brennan in the program, conducted by CBS, 50% of Americans believe that AI creates more problems than it solves, 29% think that AI solves more problems than it causes, and 21% are unsure.
Approximately 45% of people stated that they hope the government would regulate the use and development of AI. Demonstrating confidence in this technology by smoking clearly does not improve this statistic, but it does help people within the AI community to connect with each other. Revamp AI co-founder Stephen Campbell said to Business Insider last month, "When you smoke, you are inadvertently engaging in social networking."
The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, recently warned that AI could affect 40% of jobs, while industry insiders expect a major AI accident to occur within a year. Indirectly causing an outbreak of lung cancer is probably not on their bingo card.
Palantir sells data analysis software to governments and the military. A large portion of its business relies on AI.
