AI researchers are taking up smoking because they expect AI to cure cancer, "as a way of signaling to other researchers how much they believe in AI", Palantir CTO tells CBS News' "Face the Nation"
(www.businessinsider.com)
People don't stop smoking because they're concerned about getting cancer, if they were concerned about getting cancer they wouldn't have started smoking.
They stop smoking so they can breathe, so they can claim stairs without getting winded, and quite possibly so they can get laid. Which is obviously something that palantir employees don't have to worry about.