The culture was and is skeptical in biased manners. Between '04 and '08 I worked with a group that had trained neural nets for 3D reconstruction of human heads. They were using it for prenatal diagnostics and a facial recognition pre-processor, and I was using it for creating digital doubles in VFX film making. By '08 I'd developed a system suitable for use in mobile advertising, creating ads with people in them, and 3D games with your likeness as the player. VCs thought we were frauds, and their tech advisors told them our tech was an old discredited technique that could not do what we claimed. We spoke to every VC, some of which literally kicked us out. Finally, after years of "no" that same AlexNet success begins to change minds, but now they want the tech to create porn. At that point, after years of "no" I was making children's educational media, there was no way I was gonna do porn. Plus, president of my co was a woman, famous for creating children's media. Yeah, the culture was different then, not too long ago.