Elon Musk Testifies That He Started OpenAI to Prevent a ‘Terminator Outcome’
Elon Musk Testifies That He Started OpenAI to Prevent a ‘Terminator Outcome’
埃隆·马斯克作证称，他创立 OpenAI 是为了防止“终结者式结局”
Elon Musk and Sam Altman appeared in a federal courtroom together for the first time on Tuesday as they fight over OpenAI’s decade-long evolution and what it means for the company’s future. 周二，埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）和萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）首次共同出现在联邦法庭上，就 OpenAI 十年来的演变及其对公司未来的意义展开了法律博弈。
The trial in Musk’s lawsuit against Altman could result in financial damages and, more significantly, governance changes at OpenAI that may complicate its plans for an initial public offering as soon as this year. 马斯克起诉奥特曼的这场审判可能会导致经济赔偿，更重要的是，可能会引发 OpenAI 的治理结构变革，从而使其最早于今年进行的首次公开募股（IPO）计划变得复杂化。
As the first witness on the stand, Musk immediately sought to frame his case as more than just about OpenAI. Siding with Altman “will give license to looting every charity in America” and shake the “entire foundation of charitable giving,” Musk told a panel of nine jurors advising US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on how to rule. 作为首位出庭证人，马斯克立即试图将此案的意义提升到 OpenAI 之外。马斯克告诉由九名陪审员组成的陪审团（他们将为美国地方法官伊冯·冈萨雷斯·罗杰斯提供裁决建议），支持奥特曼“将等同于允许掠夺美国所有的慈善机构”，并动摇“整个慈善捐赠的基础”。
Musk has been concerned about computers becoming smarter than people “since he was a young man in college,” his attorney Steven Molo told jurors. Molo explained that Musk lobbied governments to pass regulations addressing the prospect of so-called artificial general intelligence, including meeting with then-president Barack Obama in 2015. “But the government was not stepping up,” Molo said. “Elon felt he had to do something.” 马斯克的律师史蒂文·莫洛（Steven Molo）告诉陪审员，马斯克“从大学时代起”就一直担心计算机变得比人类更聪明。莫洛解释说，马斯克曾游说政府通过法规来应对所谓的通用人工智能（AGI）前景，包括在 2015 年会见时任总统巴拉克·奥巴马。“但政府并没有采取行动，”莫洛说，“埃隆觉得他必须做点什么。”
Around the same time, Musk met with Altman, a then-30-year-old investor “whom he didn’t know very well,” Molo said. They soon launched OpenAI together as a nonprofit. Google’s unchecked progress on AI development had sparked concerns for both OpenAI cofounders, and they wanted to create a competing lab with a greater focus on safety. “My perspective is [OpenAI] exists because Larry Page called me a speciesist for being pro-humanity,” Musk said, referring to the Google cofounder. “What would be the opposite of Google? An open-source nonprofit.” 莫洛表示，大约在同一时间，马斯克遇到了当时 30 岁的投资者奥特曼，“他当时并不太了解对方”。他们很快共同创立了非营利组织 OpenAI。谷歌在人工智能开发方面不受限制的进展引起了两位 OpenAI 联合创始人的担忧，他们希望创建一个更注重安全性的竞争实验室。“我的观点是，[OpenAI] 的存在是因为拉里·佩奇（Larry Page）因为我支持人类而称我为‘物种歧视者’，”马斯克在提到这位谷歌联合创始人时说，“谷歌的对立面是什么？一个开源的非营利组织。”
While Musk believes AI could cure diseases and generate prosperity for humanity, he also told the court that he thinks the technology could veer off into catastrophic scenarios straight out of science fiction. “It could also kill all of us … the Terminator outcome. I think we want to be in a movie … like Star Trek, not a James Cameron movie,” Musk said. (While Musk has long raised alarms about AI safety, his current firm, xAI, has been criticized by researchers at other AI labs for its “reckless” safety culture.) 虽然马斯克相信人工智能可以治愈疾病并为人类创造繁荣，但他同时也告诉法庭，他认为这项技术可能会偏离轨道，演变成科幻小说中的灾难性场景。“它也可能杀死我们所有人……即‘终结者式结局’。我认为我们希望生活在像《星际迷航》那样的电影里，而不是詹姆斯·卡梅隆的电影里，”马斯克说。（尽管马斯克长期以来一直对人工智能安全发出警告，但他目前的公司 xAI 因其“鲁莽”的安全文化而受到其他人工智能实验室研究人员的批评。）
As OpenAI began notching some of its own successes, Musk and Altman agreed that a for-profit arm with fixed returns for investors was necessary to raise extraordinary sums of money needed to fund hiring and computing, according to Molo. He compared it to a nonprofit museum that receives some proceeds from a for-profit store. “I was not opposed to there being a small for-profit as long as the tail didn’t wag the dog,” Musk said on the stand. 据莫洛称，随着 OpenAI 开始取得一些成功，马斯克和奥特曼一致认为，有必要设立一个为投资者提供固定回报的营利性部门，以筹集招聘和计算所需的巨额资金。他将其比作一家从营利性商店获得部分收益的非营利性博物馆。“我不反对存在一个小型的营利性机构，只要它不会喧宾夺主（尾巴摇狗），”马斯克在证人席上说。
Musk felt that the approach had gone too far when Microsoft, another defendant in the trial, agreed to invest $10 billion in 2023, and OpenAI increasingly moved intellectual property and staff to the for-profit company. “The museum store sold the Picassos so they were locked up where no one could see them,” Molo said. 当审判中的另一名被告微软在 2023 年同意投资 100 亿美元，且 OpenAI 越来越多地将知识产权和员工转移到营利性公司时，马斯克认为这种做法太过分了。“博物馆商店卖掉了毕加索的作品，把它们锁在没人能看到的地方，”莫洛说。
OpenAI’s Rebuttal
OpenAI 的反驳
William Savitt, an attorney for OpenAI, told jurors that OpenAI never promised Musk that it would remain a nonprofit and publish all its code. “The evidence here will show what Musk says happened did not happen,” Savitt said. OpenAI 的律师威廉·萨维特（William Savitt）告诉陪审员，OpenAI 从未向马斯克承诺它将永远保持非营利状态并发布所有代码。“这里的证据将表明，马斯克所说的事情并没有发生，”萨维特说。
He added that Musk knew about plans to raise corporate investment exceeding $10 billion as far back as 2018. Musk even raised concerns about Microsoft’s involvement in a 2020 tweet. But he didn’t file a lawsuit until he founded a competitor, xAI, in 2023. 他补充说，马斯克早在 2018 年就知道筹集超过 100 亿美元企业投资的计划。马斯克甚至在 2020 年的一条推文中对微软的参与表示过担忧。但他直到 2023 年创立了竞争对手 xAI 后才提起诉讼。
Savitt asked the jury to invalidate Musk’s claims on the basis that the time limit for pursuing them had expired in 2021, when Musk was well aware of the issues he’s now raising. “It’s too late to gin up something to harm a competitor,” Savitt said. 萨维特要求陪审团驳回马斯克的诉求，理由是追诉时效已于 2021 年过期，而当时马斯克已经完全了解他现在提出的这些问题。“现在想编造些什么来伤害竞争对手已经太晚了，”萨维特说。
In OpenAI’s telling, it was Musk who didn’t live up to promises. He had pledged to invest up to $1 billion in the startup. Instead, he delivered about $38 million over five years. And while he professed a desire to keep superintelligence out of the hands of a single organization or individual, he proposed that himself or his car company, Tesla, have control over OpenAI. “When OpenAI refused to be absorbed into Musk’s empire, he just picked up his marbles and left,” Savitt said. Musk testified he wanted temporary control to ensure advancement in the “right direction.” 在 OpenAI 的叙述中，是马斯克没有兑现承诺。他曾承诺向这家初创公司投资高达 10 亿美元。然而，他在五年内仅投入了约 3800 万美元。虽然他声称希望防止超级智能落入单一组织或个人手中，但他却提议由他本人或他的汽车公司特斯拉来控制 OpenAI。“当 OpenAI 拒绝被马斯克的帝国吞并时，他就带着自己的筹码离开了，”萨维特说。马斯克则作证称，他想要临时控制权是为了确保其朝着“正确的方向”发展。
In the courtroom, Musk sat among his lawyers at a table in front of the judge taking sips of water from a plastic bottle and blankly staring toward a monitor. Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman, a codefendant, were about 10 feet away in the public gallery behind their attorneys, with Altman alternating between looking at the judge and down toward the floor. Altman left just before Musk testified. OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on his departure. 在法庭上，马斯克坐在法官面前的律师席中，不时喝着塑料瓶里的水，茫然地盯着显示器。奥特曼和共同被告、OpenAI 总裁格雷格·布罗克曼（Greg Brockman）坐在他们律师身后约 10 英尺处的公众席上，奥特曼时而看向法官，时而低头看向地板。奥特曼在马斯克作证前不久离开了。OpenAI 没有立即回应关于他离开的置评请求。
The day started with an OpenAI attorney complaining to the judge about “a barrage of tweets” posted and boosted by Musk on Monday they said were “inflammatory” and promoted “a nasty article,” apparently referring to a recent New Yorker profile questioning Altman’s character. 当天开始时，OpenAI 的一名律师向法官抱怨马斯克周一发布并转发的“一连串推文”，称其具有“煽动性”并推广了“一篇恶毒的文章”，显然是指《纽约客》最近一篇质疑奥特曼人品的文章。
When the judge questioned Musk about his activity, he said that he had been responding to earlier posts from OpenAI. The judge then called for a clean slate, and Musk and Altman agreed to stand down on social media for the duration of the trial. “Try to control—all of you—your propensity to use social media to make things worse outside the courtroom,” Gonzalez Rogers said. 当法官就此询问马斯克时，他表示自己是在回应 OpenAI 此前发布的帖子。法官随后要求双方“翻篇”，马斯克和奥特曼同意在审判期间停止在社交媒体上的争论。“你们所有人都要试着控制一下，不要利用社交媒体在法庭外把事情搞得更糟，”冈萨雷斯·罗杰斯说。
The trial forced Altman to miss a marketing event that Amazon Web Services held with OpenAI in San Francisco on Tuesday to unveil new efforts in agentic AI development. “Sorry I couldn’t be there in person, but my schedule got taken away from me,” Altman said in a video recording played to the audience. 这场审判迫使奥特曼缺席了周二亚马逊云科技（AWS）与 OpenAI 在旧金山举办的营销活动，该活动旨在揭示代理式人工智能（agentic AI）开发的最新进展。“很抱歉我无法亲自到场，但我的日程安排被占用了，”奥特曼在播放给观众的视频录像中说道。
Musk’s team repeatedly experienced problems with their wireless microphone during opening statements, bringing a moment of levity to an otherwise quiet and tense courtroom. “We are funded by the federal government,” 马斯克的团队在开庭陈述期间多次遇到无线麦克风故障，这为原本安静而紧张的法庭带来了一丝轻松的时刻。“我们是由联邦政府资助的，”