Tag: satire
AI Will Totally Cure Cancer, Bro!
Posted by bsstahl on 2026-10-16 and Filed Under: tools
It was recently reported that Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar claimed that "many AI researchers have started smoking" as a way of signaling extreme confidence that AI will cure cancer. While I find this claim extremely dubious, it is not hard for me to image what the conversation that "started" such a practice might have sounded like, had it actually occurred.
FWIW: I believe that when cancer is finally cured, it will not be because a machine suddenly solved it, it will be because innumerable people made super-human efforts to do the research, ask the right questions, and even program the models, so that when all of the necessary factors came together, the solution could be found, likely with the help of machines, but most certainly by people.
The below then is completely made up for your entertainment only. Since this is purely fiction, we will use the names Samwise, Elmo and Mork to represent our researchers.
Samwise: The night air hits different when you’re smoking outside a building full of people trying to build the thing that will cure cancer or whatever. It’s like the weather is judging us.
Elmo: The weather can get in line. My stress levels are already judging me harder.
Mork: Honestly, every time I light one of these, I feel like I’m committing a tiny crime against the future. Like some time‑traveler is going to pop out and slap the cigarette out of my hand.
Samwise: If a time‑traveler shows up, I’m asking him whether our model actually works. It would save us a lot of alignment meetings.
Elmo: Imagine that. We cure cancer, and the only side effect is that we all start smoking again. It’s poetic in the stupidest possible way.
Mork: It’s the kind of thing philosophers would write essays about.
Samwise: Philosophers don’t write essays anymore, they make podcasts.
Elmo: We’d be great podcast guests. We’ve got the "tired geniuses who know too much" vibe.
Mork: We have the "tired" part. The "genius" part is still in beta.
Samwise: Still. Picture this: us in some rooftop bar in Lisbon, smoking, talking about model training, explaining how we accidentally cured cancer while debugging a tensor.
Elmo: Why Lisbon?
Samwise: Feels like a place where people smoke and talk about AI.
Mork: That’s everywhere now.
Elmo: Okay, but Seoul has better rooftop bars.
Samwise: Fine. Rooftop in Seoul, or maybe Buenos Aires. I know, Dubai. That's it. The point is: we’d look cool.
Mork: We don’t look cool. We look like three idiots who haven't taken a break since the last bubble. At least with our smokes we get to walk away from the machines for a few minutes.
Elmo: Speak for yourself. I look mysterious.
Samwise: You look like you’re waiting for an Uber that’s never coming.
Mork: Hold on. This rooftop bar thing. The smoking thing, why does it all feel like the beginning of a crappy pitch deck?
Elmo: Oh no. Oh no, I feel it too.
Samwise: Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it.
Mork: We could be...influencers.
Samwise: God. It’s happening. Mork's finally lost-it.
Elmo: Wait, we're not cringe influencers right? We'd be cool influencers. Like...intellectual degenerates.
Mork: We’d travel the world, smoke in different rooftop bars, and talk about AI. Then we get paid by people who don’t understand any of it.
Samwise: You mean like tech monks, wandering the earth, except instead of enlightenment, we offer hot takes?
Elmo: And cigarettes.
Mork: Exactly. Our brand is "Wisdom, but with lung damage."
Samwise: I’d subscribe.
Elmo: I’d unsubscribe, then resubscribe just to feel something.
Mork: Okay, but real talk, how do we get this funded?
We’re not paying for flights to Lisbon ourselves.Samwise: Easy. We tell the company we started smoking because we know our AI will cure cancer. So technically, this is...morale research.
Elmo: Oooh, that's good! We pitch it as a "global outreach initiative." We travel the world, smoke, talk about how powerful the AI is, and reassure everyone that cancer is basically canceled.
Mork: We frame it as "post‑oncological lifestyle marketing."
Samwise: We’re geniuses. I mean, sure we're ridiculous and totally getting fired, but hopefully only after the first world tour.
Elmo: Worth it.
Mork: Toss me a light. I need to "accelerate my personal research."
