Palantir Technologies Inc.’s (NASDAQ:PLTR) Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar rejected calls for AI regulation, framing the focus on risk as a distraction from economic utility. Speaking on CBS News, Sankar described the movement driving AI safety narratives as a “doomsday cult” and confirmed the military has replaced Anthropic’s models following a dispute over safeguards.
Silicon Valley Ideology vs. Economic Utility
Sankar argued that public anxiety surrounding artificial intelligence stems from theological narratives rather than technical realities. He noted that AI researchers warning of catastrophic outcomes have created a “mass psychosis” that obscures the technology’s actual impact on American enterprise and the workforce.
“There’s an unseen force driving the narrative around AI safety and it’s… this millenarian doomsday cult meets messianic complex called effective altruism,” Sankar said. “Many of these folks in Silicon Valley who are building this technology have filled that hole with the machine god of AGI.”
According to Sankar, tech companies carry a two-fold burden: demonstrating clear economic prosperity and taking full engineering responsibility for product safety rather than abdicating it to external researchers. Sankar noted that existing laws provide a “massive running head start” for dealing with liability.
Defense Department Operations and Model Sovereignty
Addressing developments in military software deployment, Sankar confirmed that the Department of Defense experienced no operational impact after ceasing its use of Anthropic’s Claude models within Project Maven.
Sankar stated that Anthropic’s capabilities have “already been replaced” within the system through alternative providers such as OpenAI, xAI, and open-weight models from Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA).
“The department today has a wide range of model providers,” Sankar said. He argued that an institution’s “sovereignty and agency” relies entirely on its freedom to decide which models to use and in what context, adding: “It is your alpha.”
Responding to reports regarding a lethal strike in Minab, Sankar denied that Palantir’s AI software caused the civilian casualties. He called the reporting “inaccurate,” attributing the event to likely human error, and noted that Palantir subsequently deployed additional AI agents to double-check targeting workflows outside of the processes they own.
How Has PLTR Performed in 2026?
The stock was 0.50% lower in premarket trading on Monday. It was higher by 12.71% over the last year, 17.61% year-to-date, and higher by 23.31% over the last month. The stock closed up 5.17% at $209.05 on Friday.
Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that PLTR maintains a strong price trend in the short, medium, and long terms, with a bad value score.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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