A new AI-era joke: engineers smoking may signal belief in cancer-curing AGI
fkasummer · x · 2026-07-23
A quote about engineers smoking around SoMa becomes an AGI-era joke.
- The original line frames the cigarette habit as a proxy for believing cancer-curing AGI is imminent.
- The reply — “Now do the Straussian read” — turns it into a meta joke about reading hidden signals into everyday behavior.
- It is more about AI culture and status-signaling humor than about any concrete technical claim.
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