I like the guys general ideas about research but um. Did you see the section describing contracts? Article states 50% of funding came from the military. People would be freaking out if they heard the same about Google, Facebook, or OpenAI.. for good reason.
I'm not a fan of weaponizing AI, and I think that's what we're talking about. Either it was a glorified CMS, in which case the presentation as AI was dishonest and cynical. Or it really was AI, in which case it was weaponized research.
If we're talking about graves, then it might be good to also consider all of the ones that you're not mentioning, the ones presumably resulting from the details about where the money came from. How many? How many of those deserved it and how many were bad inferences? I guess we'll never know.
Oh, OK. Well I don't call that a grifter, just an ordinary, garden variety, techie. Many (not all) do that; actively seek funding from militaries for their work.
E.g., just this week MS fired two people for protesting the use of Azure to power the Palestinian Genocide [1].
When people talk about the military-industrial complex, what they really should be talking about is the military-FAANG complex. AI and military intelligence are both the same sad joke.
Lenat was no different in that, so I don't think it's fair to call him a grifter. I do think it's fair to call him out on being an asshole who put money above peoples' lives.
Btw, I've released some of my free stuff under a modified GNU 3.0 with an added clause that prohibits its use for military applications. I've been told that makes it "non-free" and it seems that's a bad thing. Lenat is only one nerd in a long line of nerds that need to think very hard about the ethics of their work.
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[1] https://apnews.com/article/microsoft-protest-employees-fired...
They were protesting about this:
https://www.972mag.com/microsoft-azure-openai-israeli-army-c...