On the stand, Elon Musk can’t escape his own tweets
On the stand, Elon Musk can’t escape his own tweets
在法庭上，埃隆·马斯克无法逃避他自己的推文
Elon Musk came to a California federal court on Wednesday to argue that Sam Altman and his cofounders “stole a charity.” He left having admitted, under oath, that Tesla is not currently pursuing artificial general intelligence (AGI)— directly contradicting a tweet he’d posted just weeks earlier. It was that kind of day for Musk. 周三，埃隆·马斯克来到加利福尼亚州联邦法院，指控萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）及其联合创始人“窃取了一家慈善机构”。然而在离开时，他在宣誓后承认，特斯拉目前并未追求通用人工智能（AGI）——这直接反驳了他几周前发布的一条推文。对于马斯克来说，这一天就是如此尴尬。
The lawsuit he filed challenging the structure of OpenAI alleges Sam Altman and the other cofounders tricked him into backing a non-profit, then launched the frontier lab’s for-profit arm and let it come to dominate the organization. After an occasionally testy Musk testified for hours, it appears the case may come down to how much of a distinction jurors and Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers make between investors in OpenAI having their potential profit capped or not. 他针对 OpenAI 架构提起的诉讼称，萨姆·奥特曼和其他联合创始人诱骗他支持一家非营利组织，随后又启动了该前沿实验室的营利性部门，并使其逐渐主导了整个组织。在马斯克进行了数小时有时显得有些急躁的作证后，此案的关键似乎在于陪审团和法官伊冯·冈萨雷斯·罗杰斯（Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers）如何区分 OpenAI 投资者的潜在利润是否受到限制。
In Musk’s telling, when he cofounded the lab with Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman and others, he trusted them to build AI for humanity, but over time became suspicious of their motives, and finally concluded that they were “looting the nonprofit.” 按照马斯克的说法，当他与萨姆·奥特曼、伊利亚·苏茨克维（Ilya Sutskever）、格雷格·布罗克曼（Greg Brockman）等人共同创立该实验室时，他信任他们会为人类构建人工智能，但随着时间的推移，他开始怀疑他们的动机，并最终得出结论：他们是在“掠夺这家非营利组织”。
OpenAI’s lawyer William Savitt sought to complicate that story during cross-examination, trying to show that Musk had supported a variety of efforts to transition OpenAI toward for-profit status so it could raise the funds necessary to compete with firms like Google, including incorporating the AI lab into Tesla. OpenAI 的律师威廉·萨维特（William Savitt）在交叉询问中试图让这一叙述变得复杂，他试图证明马斯克曾支持多种将 OpenAI 转为营利性实体的努力，以便筹集与谷歌等公司竞争所需的资金，其中包括将该人工智能实验室并入特斯拉。
Musk testified that he had discussed converting the company to a for-profit as early as 2016, and that in 2017, he had explored creating a for-profit arm of OpenAI where he would hold the majority of the equity and control the company. When those plans fell apart, he stopped making regular donations to OpenAI, though he continued to pay for its office space until 2020. 马斯克作证称，他早在 2016 年就讨论过将该公司转为营利性机构，并且在 2017 年，他曾探索过创建一个 OpenAI 的营利性部门，由他持有多数股权并控制公司。当这些计划破裂后，他停止了对 OpenAI 的定期捐款，尽管他一直支付其办公空间租金直到 2020 年。
Musk insisted that there was a big difference between investors whose profits are capped and those whose profits are unlimited. The earliest major investments by Microsoft in OpenAI limited the software giant’s profits, but those restrictions have been rolled back over the years. Musk says those changes ultimately led him to bring this lawsuit. 马斯克坚称，利润受限的投资者与利润不受限的投资者之间存在巨大差异。微软对 OpenAI 的早期重大投资限制了这家软件巨头的利润，但这些限制在过去几年中已被取消。马斯克表示，正是这些变化最终促使他提起了这起诉讼。
Savitt tried to establish that Musk had been consulted by Altman and Shivon Zillis — his longtime adviser who is also the mother of four of his children — about subsequent efforts to raise money, and did not object. Zillis was also a member of the OpenAI board when it approved some of those transactions. 萨维特试图证实，奥特曼和希冯·齐利斯（Shivon Zillis）——马斯克的长期顾问，也是他四个孩子的母亲——曾就后续的融资努力咨询过马斯克，而马斯克并未表示反对。当 OpenAI 董事会批准其中一些交易时，齐利斯也是董事会成员。
That cross-examination extended to Tesla’s AI ambitions. Notably, Musk was asked about Tesla’s efforts to develop competing AI technologies and found himself, not for the first time, on the wrong side of one of his own posts on X. After Musk said that Tesla’s AI work was focused only on self-driving and not AGI (a term for AI systems that can perform any intellectual task that a human can), he was asked about a recent post claiming that “Tesla will be one of the companies to make AGI.” 交叉询问延伸到了特斯拉的人工智能雄心。值得注意的是，当马斯克被问及特斯拉开发竞争性人工智能技术的努力时，他发现自己再次陷入了与自己在 X 上发布的帖子相矛盾的境地。在马斯克表示特斯拉的人工智能工作仅专注于自动驾驶而非 AGI（指能够执行人类任何智力任务的人工智能系统）后，他被问及最近的一篇帖子，该帖子声称“特斯拉将成为制造 AGI 的公司之一”。
“We are not pursuing AGI right now,” Musk told the court. (Tesla shareholders may want to take note.) “我们目前并没有在追求 AGI，”马斯克告诉法庭。（特斯拉的股东们可能需要注意这一点。）
Musk was also asked about a post where he claimed to have invested $100 million in OpenAI, rather than the $38 million that actually changed hands. He argued that his reputation and network made up for the disparity. 马斯克还被问及他曾发帖声称向 OpenAI 投资了 1 亿美元，而非实际转账的 3800 万美元。他辩称，他的声誉和人脉弥补了这一差额。
Savitt brought up emails where Musk had backed efforts by Tesla and his brain interface company, Neuralink, to poach employees from OpenAI while he was still on that company’s board. Another conversation focused on his efforts to hire OpenAI leaders when he left the board in 2018, including Andrej Karpathy, who departed OpenAI to lead self-driving work at Tesla. Musk was also asked about a conversation where Zillis suggested Musk recruit Sutskever to Tesla. 萨维特提到了几封电子邮件，显示马斯克在担任 OpenAI 董事会成员期间，曾支持特斯拉及其脑机接口公司 Neuralink 从 OpenAI 挖角员工。另一段对话则聚焦于他在 2018 年离开董事会时试图聘请 OpenAI 领导层，包括安德烈·卡帕西（Andrej Karpathy），后者离开 OpenAI 后负责特斯拉的自动驾驶工作。马斯克还被问及齐利斯曾建议他将苏茨克维招募到特斯拉的对话。
The most consequential thread of the day, though, may have been about harm prevention. Part of Musk’s case rests on the idea that OpenAI transition into a traditional corporation is dangerous to society because it reduces the company’s focus on safety. Savitt, in turn, had Musk admit that all AI companies, including his own, suffer from this risk. 然而，当天最关键的议题可能是关于危害预防。马斯克诉讼的部分依据在于：OpenAI 向传统公司的转型对社会是危险的，因为它降低了公司对安全性的关注。萨维特则让马斯克承认，所有人工智能公司，包括他自己的公司，都面临这种风险。
Judge Gonzalez Rogers halted that line of questioning, but in remarks to the lawyers after testimony concluded made clear it would resume, with limits. When Musk’s lawyers floated questions about ChatGPT’s role in the Tumbler Ridge shooting—an incident earlier of this year in Canada in which a person went on a killing spree after extensive conversations with the chatbot—she made clear that she didn’t want to hear about scandals caused by AI models, but that xAI and OpenAI’s approaches to safety were fair game. 冈萨雷斯·罗杰斯法官叫停了这一轮质询，但在证词结束后对律师发表的评论中明确表示，该议题将在有限制的情况下继续进行。当马斯克的律师提出关于 ChatGPT 在 Tumbler Ridge 枪击案中角色的问题时（该事件发生在今年早些时候的加拿大，一名男子在与聊天机器人进行大量对话后进行了杀戮），法官明确表示，她不想听关于人工智能模型引发的丑闻，但 xAI 和 OpenAI 的安全方法是可以讨论的。
Musk returns Thursday for another round of adversarial questioning. Also expected to testify are his family office manager, Jared Birchall; AI safety expert Stuart Russell; and OpenAI president Greg Brockman. 马斯克将于周四返回法庭，接受新一轮的对抗性质询。预计还将出庭作证的人员包括他的家族办公室经理贾里德·伯查尔（Jared Birchall）、人工智能安全专家斯图尔特·罗素（Stuart Russell）以及 OpenAI 总裁格雷格·布罗克曼（Greg Brockman）。