A fair complaint. These kids are present intelligence. The monkeys are possible intelligence. I think the truth is that I would spend no money of my own on either of these things. And since the activation energy to turn a smart-monkey grant into a save-the-Somali-kids-from-guineaworm-grant is very high, I am acting in the margin to ensure that a smart-monkey grant doesn't get turned into a should-we-make-smart-monkey grant or a how-smart-is-monkey grant, both of which are far more likely.

Secondarily, I value some sort of backup intelligence system as a protection against human intelligence monoculture. Though one could reasonably argue that adding a human brain-fold gene to a monkey does make it more human-like than truly independent.

I suppose I'm hoping that we get better at this and eventually are capable of uplift that yields not necessarily human-style intelligence.