Most of them were students, not academic researchers . The sole reason they were there was that it was the only way to get to computers.<p>Since you mention MIT: I guess one example is how much effort Marvin Minsky&#x27;s influence wasted in AI research and how he single-handedly killed more relevant research in that area for decades.<p>What I was trying to get at though is what I have seen in the EU. Basically they don&#x27;t even attempt to do basic research - most of the money goes to building product-like software systems, but without any realistic customer feedback loop (they already got the funding from oblivious tax payers thousands of miles away!). It&#x27;s just wanking.