Crumb
c/nottheonion · by resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world · 307d

Palantir CTO says AI doomerism is driven by a lack of religion

https://www.businessinsider.com/palantir-shyam-sankar-skeptical-ai-jobs-2025-10

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/53638667

269 points · 36 comments · view on lemmy.world

36 Comments

xxce2AAb@feddit.dk · 98 pts · 307d (1 reply)

Oh look: Another complete nutcase in a position of terrifying power.

circuitfarmer@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 307d
[ removed ]
Steve@communick.news · 81 pts · 307d (14 replies)

Peter Thiel (CEO co-founder of Palantir) realised the religious right are a fanatical base of support if you can get them on your side. So that's what he's trying to do.

the_wise_wolf@feddit.org · 37 pts · 307d (1 reply)

Peter Thiel is a co-founder and biggest individual share holder of Palantir with 3% of all shares. The CEO is Alexander Karp (also a total nut case).

Steve@communick.news · 11 pts · 307d

Oh! I didn't realise. Thank you

foggy@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 307d

Ooga booga antichrist

Plz gib billions 🥺

I fight antichrist and help bring back Jesus! 💪

I just need billions 🥺

flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz · 10 pts · 307d (6 replies)

Oh no, it's even worse. He actually believes in the religious stuff he's talking about. Not just a manipulative schemer, a true believer.

Steve@communick.news · 12 pts · 307d

I'm not sure of that.
He certainly sounds like he does. But what he says is just a little too out there, and too self serving, for someone that clever to easily convince me they actually believe it.

radix@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 307d (2 replies)

People are complicated, but I still have a hard time wrapping my head around a gay man being a true far-right christian in 2025. There are religions compatible with being LGBT, but it's just hard to reconcile that with modern christo-fascism.

wjrii@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 307d

I don't recall the link for now, but there was a fairly long piece a couple of weeks (months?) ago that went into the Thiel religious awakening. The short version is that he doesn't necessarily believe in Jesus so much as he believes that organized religion is so important as a binding agent in society that you're better off pretending to believe in it, advocating for it, and imposing it by force if it seems necessary, all to satisfy the human need for mimesis, or imitative desires and behaviors.

Society's movement away from Christianity in particular as a uniquely humane and sophisticated global-ready religion means it's okay to fall back on older "tribal" religious patterns like assertive scapegoating to reimpose the world order. There is room for regions of the world with independent traditions to impose them as a means of having a safe and orderly society, because it allows the Christian region to interact with a relatively small number of competing ideologies, which satisfy similar psychological needs for their populations, and therefore a balance can be maintained. It's better for the system if most people hold sincere beliefs about the supernatural aspects, but it's not utterly critical, particularly for elites, as long as folks legitimately buy into the societal repercussions of failing to rely on religion for social control. It's like Pascal's wager on meth, which is appropriate because a lot of it dates back to a German guy who was a Nazi apologist through most of the thirties until being discarded by them right before WW2. Some of this is strictly IIRC, so be on notice, LOL.

Conveniently, all this allows the Christianized advocates for this worldview to declare any systemic threat to the triumph of their vision for world peace to be accurately-enough referred to as the Antichrist, and the things you're allowed to do to oppose the Antichrist are quite broad.

JD Vance is thought to be well-ensconced in the ideology.

EDIT: Found it, plus a couple of others that discuss the same thing. Thiel is absolutely nuts, but not quite the way he's sometimes portrayed.

QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 307d

The Episcopal Church of theUSA is welcoming to LGBTQ+ folks as is the United Church of Christ. Thiel isnt part of those though.

Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 307d

Yeah, he's a bonafide nutcase

wjrii@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 307d

He believes something incredibly toxic and nuts, but I'm not sure it's exactly that Christianity is "true," but rather that it's just so incredibly useful that it might as well be, and therefore it's not hypocritical to espouse it with gusto, regardless of what you personally think about the supernatural.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-real-stakes-real-story-peter-thiels-antichrist-obsession/

Formfiller@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 306d

I think Thiel might actually be this crazy and believe his own pseudo Christian narcissistic bs. He was raised fundamentalist. He works with a weirdo evil billionaire cult Acts 17. Behind the bastards just did a couple episodes on his Antichrist talks.

recklessengagement@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 306d

Holy fuck that is sinister

QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 307d (1 reply)

Hasn’t he always been a weirdly Christian tech guy?

Steve@communick.news · 2 pts · 307d

It's possible, but not that I'm aware of

Archangel1313@lemmy.ca · 63 pts · 307d

So...being onboard with the AI revolution requires belief in imaginary things?

Yep. That actually checks out.

morphballganon@lemmy.world · 46 pts · 307d

Person not gullible in one respect also isn't gullible in another respect?

You don't say?

SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 307d

Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives

aarch0x40@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 307d (1 reply)

Let's rewrite that headline in a more positive tone.

AI doomerism is driven by those with a clear perspective.

qupada@fedia.io · 14 pts · 307d

"AI doomerism is driven by rational thinkers"

Fedizen@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 307d (1 reply)

Jokes on him, I'm part of the Butlerian Jihad. Death to the toasters.

Its also weird all these tech CEOs are backing the guy who is trying to deport populations that are more christian (80%) than the general US population (60%).

Its almost like they're just pointing the finger at everything but money.

InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 306d

Blessed be the maker and his water

cycadophyta@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 306d

These evil fucks need to go

brezel@piefed.social · 13 pts · 307d

i think religion is the one thing of which there exists no lack anywhere on this planet.

QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 307d

My family are Christians which by definition is apocalyptic, what is this guy talking about?

gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works · 12 pts · 307d

Palantir CEO can lick my entire taint

scarabic@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 307d

I’m actually terrified by religious people and their unshakeable belief that everything’s gonna be okay because Sky Daddy will fix it and if we destroy the world well that’s just accelerating His plan so it’s all good.

Concerned about the consequences of our actions? Here just take some opiate-of-the-masses and chill out.

Ilixtze@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 307d

Reinforces my position that AI is apocalyptic Christianity for techbros.

taiyang@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 307d

Ah yes, I love faith-based AI technology. The slop is real so long as you believe! /s

Seriously are these people who think your prayers are the reason your phone stays on 1% battery for an hour longer than you thought?

hendrik@palaver.p3x.de · 5 pts · 307d

Yeah, his founder Pether Thiel has some very weird takes on religion as well.

avidamoeba@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 307d

Have a problem with society not doing what you want it to do? It's a problem with the lack of religion! It's true. We've known religion gives you the capability to get societies to do what you want them to for centuries.

kbal@fedia.io · 3 pts · 307d

The strength of todays "AI" is generating bullshit, isn't it? Not that it doesn't take more than that to invent a new religion, I suppose you also need genuine holy divine inspiration and so on, but it sure might be helpful to the process.

Flax_vert@feddit.uk · 3 pts · 307d

I think I'm one of the more well known religious folk on this place, and I am also a bit of an AI doomer.

I think the way some people want to use it is satanic.

Revelation 13:14-15 ESV

and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain.

Fmstrat@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 305d

This headline doesn't seem to match the article content at all. He never says that. He makes a statement about how people are interpreting AI as filling a "God shaped hole", but that's as close at it gets.

t_berium@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 306d

I guess it's time for some Imperial Truth.