Taking up smoking as an act of faith in AI is obviously stupid if it's real

Palantir CTO says some AI researchers are taking up smoking because they expect AI to cure cancer

Oh come on. If this is anything beyond some weird Palantir executive making stuff up for marketing purposes then it is absolutely insane.

‘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” on Sunday.

The logic, he said, is: “I believe so much in AI that it’s going to cure cancer. So I’m showing you my chips are all in.”

I feel like there are a myriad of other, less crazy, ways of showing you’re all in on this technology.

That said:

Sankar did not name any researchers or provide evidence for the claim.

And there’s no evidence to date that AI has done anything uniquely useful with regards to Making Smoking Healthy Again.