Mira Murati’s deposition pulled back the curtain on Sam Altman’s ouster

米拉·穆拉蒂的证词揭开了萨姆·奥特曼被罢免的内幕

The week leading up to Thanksgiving 2023 was the AI industry’s biggest soap opera moment. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was abruptly ousted from his role at the ChatGPT-maker. The explanation? That Altman was “not consistently candid in his communications with the board.” Now, via witness testimony and trial exhibits in Musk v. Altman, the public is getting a concrete look behind the scenes of that dramatic weekend for the first time, much of it centered on former CTO Mira Murati.

2023年感恩节前的那一周，是人工智能行业最像肥皂剧的一段时期。OpenAI首席执行官萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）突然被这家ChatGPT开发商解职。给出的理由是：奥特曼“在与董事会的沟通中并不总是坦诚的”。如今，通过“马斯克诉奥特曼案”的证人证词和庭审证据，公众首次得以具体地窥见那个戏剧性周末背后的真相，而这一切的核心人物正是前首席技术官米拉·穆拉蒂（Mira Murati）。

It was a unique situation in that the rollercoaster of a power play — which seemed to change every hour — took place, in many ways, publicly. The board’s strikingly vague blog post announcing Altman’s ouster was posted on OpenAI’s website, immediately sparking a laundry list of conspiracy theories bandied about on X. (It turned out that the impetus had allegedly been a pattern of lying or omission by Altman, whether about OpenAI’s safety processes, about his own ownership stake in OpenAI’s startup fund, or about the release of certain tools or features like ChatGPT.)

这是一场独特的权力博弈，其过山车般的剧情似乎每小时都在变化，且在很大程度上是公开进行的。董事会发布奥特曼被罢免消息的博客文章措辞极其模糊，发布在OpenAI官网上后，立即在X（原推特）上引发了各种阴谋论。（事实证明，其导火索据称是奥特曼存在一系列撒谎或隐瞒行为，无论是关于OpenAI的安全流程、他个人在OpenAI创业基金中的所有权份额，还是关于ChatGPT等特定工具或功能的发布。）

Throughout it all, one unassuming character seemed to be everywhere at once: OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. At first, she was made interim CEO, before immediately ceding the position to outsider Emmett Shear. Within days, Altman was back at the helm of the company, and the board that had come together to remove him was largely gone.

在这整个过程中，有一个看似不起眼的角色似乎无处不在：OpenAI首席技术官米拉·穆拉蒂。起初，她被任命为临时首席执行官，但随后立即将职位让给了外来者埃米特·谢尔（Emmett Shear）。几天之内，奥特曼重掌公司大权，而当初联合起来罢免他的董事会成员也大多离职了。

Murati had publicly supported Altman’s reinstatement and posted online in favor of him returning to his role at the company. But over time, reports surfaced that she had had a significant hand in his ouster. She had, by some accounts, more or less started the internal conversation about concerns surrounding Altman and funneled a significant amount of information — including screenshots, documentation of text messages, and allegations of mismanagement during Altman’s time at Y Combinator — to cofounder Ilya Sutskever, who then took his concerns to the OpenAI board in the form of a 52-page memo.

穆拉蒂曾公开支持奥特曼复职，并在网上发文支持他回归公司。但随着时间的推移，有报道称她在奥特曼被罢免一事中扮演了重要角色。据一些说法，她或多或少开启了内部关于奥特曼相关担忧的讨论，并向联合创始人伊利亚·苏茨克维（Ilya Sutskever）输送了大量信息——包括截图、短信记录以及奥特曼在Y Combinator任职期间管理不善的指控。随后，苏茨克维将这些担忧整理成一份52页的备忘录提交给了OpenAI董事会。

In 78 text messages exchanged over a 14-hour period, between Sunday early evening and Monday morning, Murati and Altman talked at length about whether his reinstatement would be possible and what would happen next. Altman said that D’Angelo, a board member, was “trying to get the board to agree to a configuration” but that Altman and Nadella had told D’Angelo that that “doesn’t work and that [they] need to start preparing for plan b.”

在周日傍晚到周一上午这14个小时内，穆拉蒂和奥特曼交换了78条短信，详细讨论了奥特曼复职的可能性以及接下来的走向。奥特曼表示，董事会成员德安杰洛（D’Angelo）“正试图让董事会同意某种配置”，但奥特曼和纳德拉（Nadella）告诉德安杰洛，这种方案“行不通，他们需要开始准备B计划”。

Around 2:30am on Monday morning, Altman asked, “can you indicate directionally good or bad? satya and others anxious.” Murati responded, “Directionally very bad. Sam this is very bad.”

周一凌晨2点30分左右，奥特曼问道：“你能告诉我方向是好是坏吗？萨提亚（纳德拉）和其他人都很焦虑。”穆拉蒂回复道：“方向非常糟糕。萨姆，这真的很糟糕。”

Murati told Altman she was “hoping Satya can help undo this.” Between November 17 and 20, Murati and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who was squarely on Altman’s side during the conflict and had offered to hire every OpenAI employee over to Microsoft to work under Altman, also exchanged a number of text messages (largely one-sided, with Murati reaching out to Nadella).

穆拉蒂告诉奥特曼，她“希望萨提亚能帮忙扭转局面”。在11月17日至20日期间，穆拉蒂与微软首席执行官萨提亚·纳德拉也交换了多条短信（主要是单方面的，由穆拉蒂主动联系纳德拉）。纳德拉在冲突期间坚定地站在奥特曼一边，并提出愿意聘用所有OpenAI员工到微软，在奥特曼麾下工作。