别再纠结于那些所谓的“睡眠优化方法”或“冷水浴”了：在人工智能（AI）研究人员中，吸烟已经成为一种新的“时尚标志”。至少，Palantir公司的首席技术官Shyam Sankar是这么认为的。他称，一些AI研究人员开始吸烟，是为了表达他们对AI能够最终治愈癌症的坚定信念。Sankar在周日接受CBS News《Face the Nation》节目采访时说：“很多AI研究人员之所以开始吸烟，就是为了向其他研究人员表明他们对AI的信心。”
Forget sleepmaxxing and cold plunging: smoking is the new lifestyle flex among AI researchers. At least, that's according to Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar, who said some AI researchers are taking up smoking to signal their belief that AI will eventually cure cancer. "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.
他的逻辑是：“我对AI充满信心，相信它一定能治愈癌症；因此，我要通过吸烟来向大家展示我对AI的投入。”不过，Sankar并未具体指出哪些研究人员持有这种观点，也没有提供任何证据来支持这一说法。事实上，吸烟仍然是导致可预防疾病和死亡的主要原因之一；目前还没有任何AI技术能够彻底消除吸烟带来的健康风险。
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." Sankar did not name any researchers or provide evidence for the claim. Smoking remains a major cause of preventable illness and death, and no AI breakthrough has eliminated the health risks associated with cigarettes. But the Palantir executive's remarks echo a countercurrent already visible in parts of the tech industry.
不过，Sankar的言论确实反映了科技行业中的一个特殊现象：在那些以注重健康（如通过冷水浴、睡眠监测或肽类疗法来保持健康）而闻名的企业中，仍有一小部分创始人、工程师和投资者选择继续吸烟。对他们来说，吸烟不仅是一种放松方式，也是一种展示自己“不那么刻板、更随和”的方式。还有一些AI技术的支持者认为，随着技术的进步，与吸烟相关的健康问题终将被彻底解决。
As Business Insider's Henry Chandonnet reported last month, a small group of founders, engineers, and investors has embraced cigarettes in a sector otherwise known for optimizing their health with cold plunges, sleep tracking, and peptide treatments. For some of them, a cigarette break is an opportunity to meet people and network. For others, it's a way to come across as more relaxed and less polished than the typical startup founder. And some AI believers expect the technology to make smoking-related health risks a thing of the past.
AI可穿戴设备公司Friend的创始人Avi Schiffmann曾对Business Insider表示：“等到人们患上肺癌的时候，我们的AI机器人应该已经成功治愈了这种疾病。”在CBS News的采访中，Sankar在批评硅谷对AI的过度炒作和盲目乐观的同时，也提到了这一现象。
"By the time you do get lung cancer, our AI robots are supposed to have cured that," Avi Schiffmann, the founder of AI wearable startup Friend, previously told Business Insider. In the CBS News interview, Sankar raised the smoking anecdote while criticizing what he called Silicon Valley's "mass psychosis" and "social delusion" around AI.
他直言不讳地批评了那些倡导人工智能安全的人，指责他们在采访中将通用人工智能（AGI）视为“机器之神”。借鉴哲学家布莱兹·帕斯卡（Blaise Pascal）的观点（即人类心中存在一个“类似上帝的存在”），桑卡尔（Sankar）指出，硅谷的一些人对通用人工智能抱有近乎宗教般的信仰。他说：“我认为很重要的一点是：那些开发这项技术的人，实际上是用‘通用人工智能’这个概念来填补他们内心中的那个‘空洞’的。”
He has been outspoken in his criticism of AI safety advocates, whom he accused in the interview of treating artificial general intelligence as a "machine god." Invoking philosopher Blaise Pascal's idea that humans have a "God-shaped hole" in their hearts, Sankar said that some people in Silicon Valley have placed quasi-religious faith in AGI. "I think it's important to understand that many of these folks in Silicon Valley who are building this technology have filled that hole with the machine god of AGI," Sankar said.