Itamar Arel

Israeli-American computer scientist, AI entrepreneur, and former Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Tennessee (2003-2021), where he headed the Machine Intelligence Lab for over a decade. In 2009, Arel was introduced to Jeffrey Epstein by Ben Goertzel and traveled to meet Epstein in Palm Beach, Florida, a trip funded by Epstein. ' Between 2009 and 2016, Arel corresponded with Epstein about facial recognition technology and humanoid robots, with LinkedIn interactions continuing through 2017. In March 2010, Arel and Goertzel prepared a draft R&D proposal for the Epstein Foundation to develop a 'robotic AGI toddler,' an AI system with the intelligence of a 3-4 year old child, with a $3 million price tag. Arel's contribution was the DeSTIN (Deep SpatioTemporal Inference Network) facial recognition system he had developed with UT graduate students.

In 2011, Arel requested $50,000 from Epstein for a sabbatical at George Mason University. Critically, Arel used University of Tennessee student time and resources on Epstein-funded work, raising institutional ethics questions. After leaving UT in 2021, Arel founded Apprente (AI voice agents for drive-throughs), which was acquired by McDonald's in 2019, where he became VP and head of McD Tech Labs. He later co-founded Tenyx (acquired by Salesforce in 2024) and is currently a venture partner at Marado Ventures. The facial recognition technology from the Epstein-funded DeSTIN project was later incorporated into Hanson Robotics' Sophia robot.

Documents from DOJ Data Set 9 contain extensive email correspondence between Arel and Epstein.