Palantir CTO Calls AGI Hype a 'Mass Psychosis', Cites Researchers Smoking as Faith Signal
AlexTensor · x · 2026-10-12
Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar called Silicon Valley's AGI fervor a "mass psychosis" and framed it as a theological critique, invoking Pascal's "God-shaped hole"—claiming many builders fill it with a "machine god of AGI." He even claimed some AI researchers have taken up smoking to signal how strongly they believe AI will cure cancer, to anchor Margaret Brennan's disbelief. The post also quotes Meta's Devansh Tandon on recommender scaling: data, compute, and model size follow power-law curves, with HSTU-style offline gains (entropy/AUC) translating into engagement and revenue at the largest consumer apps.
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