AI Optimists? AI Researchers Now Smoking Because Superintelligence Will Cure Cancer
Because somewhere in Silicon Valley, a Marlboro is now a prayer.
A note from Lawrence
On Sunday, Palantir’s chief technology officer told Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation that “so many AI researchers have started smoking” to signal how much they believe in AI. The logic: I’m so sure it will cure cancer, I’ll light up. Brennan said what everyone was thinking: “What? That makes no sense.” He named no researchers, and Fortune noted it’s unclear how many are smoking at all.
I went looking for what actually cures lung cancer, and it wasn’t a chatbot. The Annual Report to the Nation credits “accelerated progress against lung cancer,” and U.S. adult smoking hit an all-time low of 9% in 2025. Millions of boring people put the pack down. As far as I can tell, there is no AI cancer cure, only predictions. A prediction has never once shrunk a tumor.
