In 2002, scientists gathered for the St. Thomas Common Sense Symposium on artificial intelligence (AI), hosted by sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
At the time, AI had not lived up to its potential, and the event was intended to reset the mindset of its participants and help AI attain better results and reach its potential.
In a dark shadow over the event, attendees were wined and dined at Epstein’s private island retreat.
Despite the lavish surroundings and Epstein’s apparentminimal participation in the event, attendees were more interested in pushing their own AI theories and ideas and predicting the future of the technology, which they agreed was in conversational AI, or ChatGPT.
One of the attendees, Pushpinder Singh, had written a paper in 1996 about why AI failed, and the symposium was in part a response to that paper.
Singh died by suicide in 2006 never realising his potential in the emerging field of AI.
