The CEO of a London-based company faced an unexpected branding hiccup recently after announcing an open-science initiative called Project AELLA—only to rename it nine hours later to Project OSSAS. The reason? Aella isn’t just a name for an AI-driven research accessibility project. It’s also the name of a well-known OnlyFans creator and sex worker who has built a reputation as a data-driven researcher.
“Thank you to those who brought the context surrounding this name to our attention, and to our partners and the research community for their ongoing support,” Inference CEO Sam Hogan wrote on X after the change. Aella herself responded with humor, reposting the update with a simple “Lmfao.”
The original Project AELLA was pitched as an “open-science initiative to make scientific research accessible via structured summaries created by LLMs.” But Hogan soon learned that Aella—the person—was a prominent figure in tech-adjacent circles. In 2020, she ranked among the top 0.04 percent of OnlyFans creators, reportedly earning up to $100,000 (about Rs 89 lakh) a month, according to Business Insider. She also worked as an escort, charging $4,000 (about Rs 3.5 lakh) for the first hour and $1,000 (about Rs 89,000) for each additional hour, as she revealed on the “Dating Talk” podcast earlier this year.
Today, Aella focuses primarily on research. Her Substack, Knowingless, explores sex and relationships through data mining—a niche that has gained traction among technologists. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen even called one of her ideas “fantastic.” Hogan acknowledged her work in a follow-up exchange: “I didn’t know who you were until today. Now I do! Love your work.” Aella replied in kind: “Your work seems great too! I love ppl working on making science better.”
As the dust settles, both Hogan and Aella appear to have turned an awkward moment into a mutual appreciation of each other’s efforts—one in open science, the other in unconventional research.
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