Elon Musk tried to hire OpenAI founders to start AI unit inside Tesla
Elon Musk tried to hire OpenAI founders to start AI unit inside Tesla
埃隆·马斯克曾试图聘请 OpenAI 创始人，在特斯拉内部建立人工智能部门
Elon Musk tried to hire OpenAI’s founding team, including Sam Altman, to lead a new AI lab within Tesla in 2018, as the AI start-up’s leaders grappled over who should control the company and its direction. 2018 年，当 OpenAI 的领导层正为公司的控制权和发展方向争执不下时，埃隆·马斯克曾试图聘请包括萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）在内的 OpenAI 创始团队，来领导特斯拉内部的一个新人工智能实验室。
Musk, a co-founder of the AI group, proposed bringing Altman, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever to his carmaker, appointing Altman to the board or making OpenAI a Tesla subsidiary, according to evidence in a high-stakes trial between the billionaire and the ChatGPT maker on Wednesday. 周三，在马斯克与这家 ChatGPT 开发商之间的一场高风险庭审中，证据显示，作为该人工智能组织联合创始人的马斯克，曾提议将奥特曼、格雷格·布罗克曼（Greg Brockman）和伊利亚·苏茨克维（Ilya Sutskever）招入他的汽车公司，并提议让奥特曼进入董事会，或者将 OpenAI 变成特斯拉的子公司。
The disclosures shed light on a crucial issue in the case, in which Musk has claimed that Altman “stole a charity” by converting the company into a for-profit. OpenAI’s lawyers have argued the Tesla chief executive was happy to commercialize the lab, provided that he remained in charge. 这些披露揭示了该案件中的一个关键问题：马斯克声称奥特曼通过将公司转为营利性企业，“窃取了一家慈善机构”。而 OpenAI 的律师则辩称，只要马斯克能保持控制权，这位特斯拉首席执行官其实很乐意将该实验室商业化。
Emails, texts, and testimony on Wednesday showed that by late 2017 Musk had lost confidence in the non-profit OpenAI’s ability to build artificial general intelligence, a powerful form of AI—and was exploring building his own AI lab within Tesla. 周三提交的电子邮件、短信和证词显示，到 2017 年底，马斯克已对非营利组织 OpenAI 构建通用人工智能（AGI，一种强大的人工智能形式）的能力失去了信心，并开始探索在特斯拉内部建立自己的人工智能实验室。
“There is little chance of OpenAI being a successful force if I focus on TeslaAI,” Musk wrote in a message at the time to Shivon Zilis, who testified in court on Wednesday. Zilis, an OpenAI adviser from 2016 and board member from 2020 until 2023, is the mother of four of Musk’s children and was an important interlocutor between the billionaire and the AI lab’s other founders during the six-month period on which much of the case hinges. “如果我专注于 TeslaAI，OpenAI 几乎不可能成为一股成功的力量，”马斯克当时在给希冯·齐利斯（Shivon Zilis）的一条信息中写道。齐利斯于周三在法庭上作证。齐利斯曾于 2016 年担任 OpenAI 顾问，并于 2020 年至 2023 年担任董事会成员。她是马斯克四个孩子的母亲，也是本案关键六个月期间，这位亿万富翁与该人工智能实验室其他创始人之间的重要沟通者。
In late 2017, Zilis sketched out plans for an event to “share that Tesla is building a world-leading AI lab (?) which will rival the likes of Google / DeepMind and Facebook AI Research.” By early 2018, she laid out nine possible scenarios for achieving AGI. The bulk of those centered on Tesla and included bringing Altman in to run AI at the carmaker. 2017 年底，齐利斯起草了一项活动计划，旨在“分享特斯拉正在建立一个世界领先的人工智能实验室（？），该实验室将与谷歌/DeepMind 和 Facebook AI Research 等机构相媲美。”到 2018 年初，她提出了实现 AGI 的九种可能方案。其中大部分方案都以特斯拉为中心，包括聘请奥特曼来负责这家汽车制造商的人工智能业务。
Another proposal was to poach DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis for the same role. These were among the options explored by OpenAI’s founders as they weighed the best structure to enable the company to raise enough capital to take on Google while retaining its non-profit mission. 另一个提议是挖角 DeepMind 创始人德米斯·哈萨比斯（Demis Hassabis）担任同一职务。这些都是 OpenAI 创始人在权衡最佳公司结构时探索的方案，旨在使公司既能筹集到足够的资金与谷歌竞争，又能保留其非营利使命。
Ultimately, OpenAI’s executives were not persuaded by Musk’s proposals. Zilis told Musk’s then-chief of staff Sam Teller in a February 2018 email: “They all think Elon is an incredible human being but that he really hasn’t done his homework AI/AGI and that really concerns them about working with him.” 最终，OpenAI 的高管们并没有被马斯克的提议所说服。齐利斯在 2018 年 2 月的一封电子邮件中告诉马斯克当时的幕僚长萨姆·泰勒（Sam Teller）：“他们都认为埃隆是一个了不起的人，但他确实没有在人工智能/AGI 领域做足功课，这让他们对与他合作感到担忧。”
Musk left OpenAI’s board in early 2018, and OpenAI went on to restructure as a for-profit entity with a charitable arm. The world’s richest man is suing the company in a case that could alter the fate of OpenAI, which has grown to be an $852 billion behemoth with aspirations for a public listing as early as this year. 马斯克于 2018 年初离开 OpenAI 董事会，随后 OpenAI 重组为一家拥有慈善部门的营利性实体。这位世界首富正在起诉该公司，此案可能会改变 OpenAI 的命运。如今，OpenAI 已成长为一家估值 8520 亿美元的巨头，并渴望最早于今年上市。
Musk claims Altman, Brockman, and OpenAI unjustly enriched themselves by converting the start-up into a for-profit company. William Savitt, OpenAI’s lead attorney in the case, said he believed Zilis’ testimony showed Musk was “prepared to do the for-profit, provided he would get control.” 马斯克声称，奥特曼、布罗克曼和 OpenAI 通过将这家初创公司转为营利性公司而实现了不正当获利。OpenAI 在此案中的首席律师威廉·萨维特（William Savitt）表示，他认为齐利斯的证词表明，马斯克“只要能获得控制权，就准备好进行营利性转型。”
Speaking after Wednesday’s court hearing, Savitt said Musk sought to control governance and “fold OpenAI into Tesla… when neither option was available to him he picked up his marbles and went home.” 在周三的听证会后，萨维特表示，马斯克试图控制治理权并“将 OpenAI 并入特斯拉……当这两个选项都无法实现时，他就一走了之。”
Brockman, OpenAI’s president, on Tuesday told the jury in Oakland that Musk was seeking “unilateral control over AGI,” which he and other founders could not accept. OpenAI 总裁布罗克曼周二在奥克兰告诉陪审团，马斯克寻求的是“对 AGI 的单方面控制”，这是他和公司其他创始人无法接受的。
Zilis, a technology expert who has also worked as an executive at Tesla and Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink, told the court on Wednesday that her “allegiance [is] to the best outcome of AI for humanity.” She and Musk first had a romantic relationship roughly a decade ago and decided to have children via IVF in 2020. 齐利斯是一位技术专家，也曾在特斯拉和马斯克的脑机接口公司 Neuralink 担任高管。她周三在法庭上表示，她的“忠诚在于为人类实现人工智能的最佳结果”。她和马斯克大约十年前开始了一段恋情，并决定在 2020 年通过体外受精（IVF）生育孩子。
“I… really wanted to be a mum. [Musk] was encouraging everyone around him to have children… he said if that was ever interesting he’d be able to make a donation,” she said. “我……真的很想成为一名母亲。[马斯克]当时鼓励他身边的每个人生孩子……他说如果我有兴趣的话，他可以提供捐赠，”她说。
In 2020, two years after the pair had fought over the direction of OpenAI, Altman texted Zilis to ask advice on approaching Musk. She was encouraging, but warned him: “the only thing I wonder is if he’ll pull the ‘you should have gone with Tesla’ card on you.” 2020 年，在两人因 OpenAI 的发展方向发生争执两年后，奥特曼给齐利斯发短信询问如何与马斯克接触。她表示鼓励，但也警告他：“我唯一担心的是，他会不会对你打出‘你当初应该选择特斯拉’这张牌。”