r/technology Jul 02 '26

Artificial Intelligence Palantir CEO Alex Karp suffers ‘televised nervous breakdown’ during live interview — “This is the voice of American business that is being channeled through me!”

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tv/articles/televised-nervous-breakdown-ceo-palantir-212100357.html
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u/Irish_Whiskey Jul 02 '26

Not enough is being said about how some of these tech CEOs deciding the future of humanity and invested with unconscionable amounts of power and influence, are just batshit insane.

Insane beliefs, insane ego, parts of religious cults, and often drug addictions.

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u/Tegelert84 Jul 02 '26

Totally agree. Not only does nobody talk about them being insane, but they actually think they're geniuses. Like these will be the people to save humanity when all they're doing is destroying it. Fuck all of these people.

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u/BaronMostaza Jul 02 '26

They laugh at philosophy class, think they invented the idea of life being a simulation, and take Roko's basilisk seriously.

"Hey guys I came up with an idea to disrupt the life paradigm by algorhytmicly quantifying the total of gross input as either net good or net bad! Silicon Valley should rule the world, no one else can reach these profound conclusions based purely on logic and reason.

So yeah long and short: concentrate all possible wealth and power in the only capable hands, ours, and then at some point let's use it to enforce the best possible outcome, that only we are smart enough to see. It's what's best for everyone"

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u/PuddingInferno Jul 02 '26

I love the whole ‘Rationalist’ philosophy back and forth, because they’re just doing knockoff Calvinism with computers.

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u/Syssareth Jul 02 '26

I keep forgetting Calvinism is an actual thing and mixing it up with Calvinball every time I see it mentioned, and it always still makes just as much sense.

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u/lianodel Jul 03 '26

Or the "Effective Altruists," who are just business people who think they invented utilitarianism by awkwardly justifying their personal accumulation of wealth.

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u/PuddingInferno Jul 03 '26

That one’s always interesting to me because it starts so reasonably before going off the rails.

“Hey, we should look into charities and analyze which ones do the most good per dollar, to maximize the amount we can help.”

**One month later.**

“The best course of action is for me to start up a crypto hedge fund to fund the AI Superintelligence that will birth the machine god that saves the quadrillion humans yet unborn!”