News that SIAI received funds from Epstein actually came as a surprise to us. (We found out about this a few days before OP’s question went up.) Epstein had previously approached us in 2016 looking for organizations to donate to, and we decided against pursuing the option; we didn’t realize there was any previous interaction between MIRI/SIAI and Epstein or his foundations.
The 2009 donation was brought to our attention when someone sent us a Miami Heraldarticle that included SIAI in a spreadsheet of organizations that received money from one of Epstein’s foundations. We couldn’t initially find evidence of the donation in our records, so we had to go digging a bit; it was apparently seed money for OpenCog while they were getting up and running rather than money for “real” SIAI stuff, hence current staff being out of the loop.
(I work at MIRI.)
News that SIAI received funds from Epstein actually came as a surprise to us. (We found out about this a few days before OP’s question went up.) Epstein had previously approached us in 2016 looking for organizations to donate to, and we decided against pursuing the option; we didn’t realize there was any previous interaction between MIRI/SIAI and Epstein or his foundations.
The 2009 donation was brought to our attention when someone sent us a Miami Herald article that included SIAI in a spreadsheet of organizations that received money from one of Epstein’s foundations. We couldn’t initially find evidence of the donation in our records, so we had to go digging a bit; it was apparently seed money for OpenCog while they were getting up and running rather than money for “real” SIAI stuff, hence current staff being out of the loop.