Agreed. Cyc is far from low profile. It was in Omni magazine back in the day - and it's a common example of (problematic) GOFAI approaches.
Yeah it is hardly low profile. It was a very well funded project that promised the moon and failed to deliver despite absorbing a massive amount of DoD money. A lot of AI researchers at the lab I worked at weren't big fans as there was the sense that Cyc was a shining example of how money spent on symbolic AI was just wasted.
Presuming they've actually been diligently working away, it makes an interesting test of the "we just haven't done it hard enough" hypothesis.
Not really, no. I remember talking about Cyc in my AI classes in university, and I graduated in '97.
Then again, Business Insider...
By "near secrecy" they mean "hasn't hired a PR firm."