Artificial intelligence is being sold to Americans as either a looming overlord or a magical cure‑all, and one of the people building it says both stories are false. Palantir Technologies Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar argues that the public is not just confused about AI, but actively misled about what it can do, who controls it, and who will benefit. His warning is less about the technology itself than about the narratives shaping how workers, voters, and regulators respond to it.
From his vantage point inside a company that builds data systems for governments and industry, Sankar insists AI is a tool that humans wield, not a destiny that descends on them. He frames the stakes in blunt terms: if Americans accept the myths, they will surrender power over jobs, civil liberties, and economic gains that could otherwise flow to ordinary workers.
Who Shyam Sankar is, and why his warning matters
Before I weigh his argument, it matters that Shyam Sankar is not a distant commentator but the Chief Technology Officer of Palantir Technologies. In that role, he oversees systems that fuse data for defense, intelligence, health care, and manufacturing, which gives him a front‑row view of how AI is actually deployed rather than how it is marketed. His background building software for soldiers, analysts, and line workers shapes his conviction that AI’s real value lies in augmenting human judgment, not replacing it.
Sankar’s recent public interventions are part technical briefing, part cultural critique. He has described AI as a “blue‑collar revolution” that can expand opportunities for employment, a phrase echoed in profiles that cast him as championing skilled trades and frontline workers. That vantage point, rooted in industrial and national security use cases rather than consumer chatbots, underpins his frustration with how AI is being discussed in politics and popular culture.
“Yeah, the American people are being lied to about AI”
In a recent video clip, Sankar does not hedge. “Yeah, the American people are being lied to about AI,” he says, before describing what he calls “dual narratives” that dominate the conversation. On one side, he sees a wildly dystopic story in which AI inevitably destroys jobs and perhaps humanity itself, and on the other, a utopic fantasy in which it effortlessly ushers in abundance without trade‑offs. In his telling, both extremes distract from the concrete choices citizens and policymakers still control, a point he drives home in the clip by stressing that neither story reflects how systems are actually built and deployed.
He returns to that theme in longer essays where he argues that the future of AI is not an inevitability to be endured by the American people, but something “for us, the American people, to shape.” In those pieces, he warns that treating AI as fate lets unaccountable actors make decisions in the shadows, while ordinary citizens are told they have no agency. He frames that as a kind of civic malpractice, urging readers to see AI as a set of design and policy choices rather than a force of nature, a point he anchors in his broader claim that Americans are being misled about what is at stake.
AI “doomerism,” religion, and the myth of machine divinity
One of Sankar’s most provocative claims is that a certain strain of AI “doomerism” is less about science and more about spirituality. He has said he is skeptical of apocalyptic scenarios that treat AI as an all‑powerful entity, arguing that this impulse is driven in part by a lack of religion and a search for secular doom. In interviews, the Palantir CTO has suggested that some technologists have replaced traditional faith with a quasi‑religious belief in machine omnipotence, then run around with the doomerism as if catastrophe were preordained.
He pushes back on that worldview with a simple line: “AI is not a divinity.” In his writing, he elaborates that AI cannot snap its fingers and eliminate jobs, and it cannot decide on its own to write poems or generate pornography. Those outcomes, he argues, are the result of human choices to build cheap consumer goods rather than genuine tools of productivity, a distinction he draws explicitly in essays that insist AI is not but a reflection of its makers’ priorities.
That critique extends to the broader culture around AI risk. In one account of his comments, Palantir CTO Shyam is quoted tying extreme pessimism to a vacuum of meaning, suggesting that when people stop believing in higher powers, they sometimes project that longing onto technology. A separate summary of the same remarks notes that the Palantir CTO sees this as a cultural problem, not just a technical misunderstanding, which is why he keeps returning to the language of faith and idolatry when he talks about AI.
From cheap consumer toys to tools for American workers
For Sankar, the most damaging lie is not that AI might be dangerous, but that its trajectory is fixed. He argues that AI did not choose to become a generator of trivial content, and that the decision to prioritize chatbots that write poems or explicit images over industrial tools was made by people chasing engagement. In one essay, he writes that AI did not choose to write poems or generate pornography, people chose to build cheap consumer goods rather than genuine tools of productivity, a line that appears in a piece where PALANTIR CTO SHYAM spells out his frustration with how the technology has been commercialized.
He contrasts that path with what he calls a “blue‑collar revolution,” in which AI augments welders, machinists, and logistics workers rather than just office staff. In social media posts, he has argued that AI will expand the middle class by making skilled labor more productive, a view echoed in commentary that describes AI as a. A longer profile similarly portrays Shyam Sankar as arguing that AI, properly directed, creates new opportunities for employment rather than erasing them.
Reality check: agency, rights, and the American worker
Sankar’s “reality check” is not just economic, it is constitutional. In televised segments, he has said that AI will be the best tool that has ever come along for American workers, but only if it is deployed in ways that respect civil liberties. He has raised pointed questions about how AI is used in law enforcement and national security, asking “safer how exactly?” when officials promise more security without explaining what happens to Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment protections. Those concerns surface in posts that highlight 5th and 6th as part of the AI debate.
He has also tried to reset expectations with a series of short “reality check” messages that frame AI as a tool for American workers, not their replacement. In one such message, Palantir CTO Shyam says he is optimistic about AI, and “so should you,” but only if citizens insist on systems that enhance due process rather than erode it. A related post from PALANTIR CTO SHYAM repeats his charge that the American people are being lied to about AI, tying that deception directly to how rights and workplace power are framed.
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