The American pedophile Jeffrey Epstein allocated at least $113,000 to Ben Goertzelone of the pioneers in the field of general artificial intelligence (AGI), a contribution that allowed the researcher to meet the private patronage requirements demanded by the Hong Kong authorities to obtain public subsidies.
According to an investigation published this Monday exclusively by the Hong Kong newspaper ‘South China Morning Post’ (SCMP), based on almost 800 pages of documents declassified by the United States Department of Justice, this relationship lasted for nearly two decades.
The link made it easier for Goertzel access government funds for a total amount of 8.9 million Hong Kong dollars (about 1.13 million US dollars) between 2010 and 2016.
The files reveal that Epstein channeled his support through the non-profit organization Humanity+which Goertzel currently chairs, to finance the project OpenCoga framework of open source software that he himself promoted.
The scientist and current executive director of SingularityNETwho coined the term ‘artificial general intelligence’ and was technical director of Hanson Robotics –where he participated in the development of the humanoid robot Sophia–, used these resources to meet the corporate sponsorship requirement imposed by the Hong Kong subsidy system. Specifically, the company Novamente, owned by the mathematician and programmer, acted as a formal sponsor of three projects at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU).
The intercepted emails show recurring funding requests by the researcher, which ranged between 10,000 and 60,000 US dollars annually. One of them, dated January 2010 – just six months after Epstein was released from prison for a conviction related to sexual crimes with a minor – requested $18,000.
In subsequent communications, dating back to 2015, Goertzel downplayed the allegations against Epstein by suggesting that his controversial activities could have been “an incident between reasonably mature people who were mutually consenting at the time.”
“Deep regret”
After the dissemination of these documents, Goertzel, who currently resides in the United States, although he maintains his permanent residence in the semi-autonomous city, expressed his “deep regret” for having accepted the money.
He argued that at that time It was “extremely difficult” to obtain financing for artificial intelligence projects and that their personal meetings did not exceed eight hours in 20 years, always limiting themselves to scientific discussions. He denied any knowledge of the criminal activities of the tycoon.
For its part, the Hong Kong Government’s Innovation and Technology Commission simply recalled that its evaluation processes of subsidies are “rigorous and periodic”.
The SCMP investigation highlights that, although there is no evidence that Goertzel was aware of Epstein’s crimes, the relationship illustrates how the latter managed to infiltrate elite academic and scientific circles even after his first conviction.
