Musk v. Altman week 2: OpenAI fires back, and Shivon Zilis reveals that Musk tried to poach Sam Altman
Musk v. Altman week 2: OpenAI fires back, and Shivon Zilis reveals that Musk tried to poach Sam Altman
马斯克诉奥特曼案第二周：OpenAI 强力反击，Shivon Zilis 爆料马斯克曾试图挖角萨姆·奥特曼
In the second week of the landmark trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI, Musk’s motivations for bringing the suit were under scrutiny. Last week, Musk took the stand, alleging that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman had deceived him into donating $38 million to the company. He claimed that they’d promised to maintain it as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for the benefit of humanity, only to later accept billions of dollars of investment from Microsoft and restructure the company to operate a for-profit subsidiary. 在埃隆·马斯克与 OpenAI 之间这场里程碑式诉讼的第二周，马斯克提起诉讼的动机受到了审视。上周，马斯克出庭作证，指控 OpenAI 首席执行官萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）和总裁格雷格·布罗克曼（Greg Brockman）欺骗他向该公司捐赠了 3800 万美元。他声称，对方曾承诺将其维持为一个致力于为人类利益开发人工智能的非营利组织，但后来却接受了微软数十亿美元的投资，并重组公司以运营营利性子公司。
This week, Brockman fired back with his side of the story, arguing that Musk had actually pushed for OpenAI to create a for-profit arm and fought a bitter battle to have “absolute control” over it. OpenAI has argued that Musk is suing because he didn’t get his way and is now trying to undermine a competitor to his own AI company, xAI. Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member and the mother of four of Musk’s children, also testified, revealing that Musk tried to recruit OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to lead a new AI lab at his electric-car company, Tesla. 本周，布罗克曼给出了他的说法进行反击，他认为实际上是马斯克推动 OpenAI 成立营利性部门，并为获得该部门的“绝对控制权”进行了激烈的争斗。OpenAI 辩称，马斯克提起诉讼是因为他的意图未遂，现在正试图破坏其自身人工智能公司 xAI 的竞争对手。曾任 OpenAI 董事会成员、且为马斯克育有四个孩子的 Shivon Zilis 也出庭作证，透露马斯克曾试图招募 OpenAI 首席执行官萨姆·奥特曼，去领导他旗下电动汽车公司特斯拉的一个新人工智能实验室。
Musk cofounded OpenAI in 2015 with Altman, Brockman, and others but left in 2018. Now, he’s asking the court to remove Altman and Brockman from their roles and to unwind the restructuring OpenAI undertook last year, which converted its for-profit subsidiary into a public benefit corporation. He is also seeking as much as $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, OpenAI’s investor. The outcome of the trial could upend OpenAI’s race toward an IPO at a valuation approaching $1 trillion. 马斯克于 2015 年与奥特曼、布罗克曼等人共同创立了 OpenAI，但于 2018 年离开。现在，他要求法院罢免奥特曼和布罗克曼的职务，并撤销 OpenAI 去年进行的重组——即将营利性子公司转变为公益公司。他还向 OpenAI 及其投资者微软寻求高达 1340 亿美元的赔偿。审判结果可能会颠覆 OpenAI 以接近 1 万亿美元估值进行首次公开募股（IPO）的进程。
Meanwhile, xAI, which Musk founded in 2023, is now a division of his rocket company, SpaceX; the combined companies are also expected to go public as early as June, at a target valuation of $1.75 trillion. On Monday, Brockman walked into the courtroom in a blue suit and tie, holding hands with his wife, Anna Brockman. On the stand, he was serene, even chipper, as he recalled OpenAI’s early days. But he grew agitated under impassioned questioning from Elon Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo. Altman listened in silence, while Anna Brockman sat behind him, fidgeting. Outside the courthouse, protesters rallying against the AI race sang hymns over the voices of lawyers giving press conferences. 与此同时，马斯克于 2023 年创立的 xAI 现在是他旗下火箭公司 SpaceX 的一个部门；这两家合并后的公司预计最早将于 6 月上市，目标估值为 1.75 万亿美元。周一，布罗克曼身穿蓝色西装、打着领带，牵着妻子安娜·布罗克曼的手走进法庭。在证人席上，他神情平静，甚至有些愉快地回忆起 OpenAI 的早期时光。但在埃隆·马斯克的律师史蒂文·莫洛（Steven Molo）激烈的盘问下，他变得焦躁不安。奥特曼静静地听着，而安娜·布罗克曼坐在他身后，显得坐立不安。在法院外，抗议人工智能竞赛的示威者唱着赞美诗，盖过了律师们举行新闻发布会的声音。
Two days before trial began, according to Brockman, Musk messaged him to ask if he would be interested in settling. When Brockman suggested that both sides drop their claims, Musk texted back: “By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it will be.” 据布罗克曼称，在审判开始前两天，马斯克曾发信息询问他是否有意和解。当布罗克曼建议双方撤回诉讼请求时，马斯克回复道：“到本周末，你和萨姆将成为美国最令人憎恨的人。如果你坚持，那就这样吧。”
Musk stormed out with a Tesla painting
马斯克带着一幅特斯拉画作愤然离场
Last week, Musk testified that he’s suing to save OpenAI’s nonprofit mission to develop AI safely, but he said he was open to seeing OpenAI become a capped-profit company with moderate investments from Microsoft. This week, Brockman told the jury that Musk was never truly committed to keeping OpenAI a nonprofit. In the summer of 2017, when an AI model that OpenAI built beat the world’s best players in a video game called Dota 2, Musk hosted a gathering at his “Haunted Mansion” near San Francisco. The house was splattered with confetti and cups, Brockman recalled, and the actress Amber Heard, who was Musk’s girlfriend at the time, served whiskey. 上周，马斯克作证称他提起诉讼是为了挽救 OpenAI 安全开发人工智能的非营利使命，但他表示，如果 OpenAI 成为一家接受微软适度投资的利润上限公司，他也是可以接受的。本周，布罗克曼告诉陪审团，马斯克从未真正致力于将 OpenAI 保持为非营利组织。2017 年夏天，当 OpenAI 构建的人工智能模型在名为《Dota 2》的电子游戏中击败了世界顶尖选手时，马斯克在他位于旧金山附近的“鬼屋”举办了一场聚会。布罗克曼回忆说，房子里到处都是五彩纸屑和杯子，当时是马斯克女友的演员艾梅柏·希尔德（Amber Heard）负责倒威士忌。
“Time to make the next step for OpenAI. This is the triggering event,” Musk wrote in an email—having said weeks earlier that if OpenAI made a major public achievement, it would be “time to create a for-profit,” Brockman told the jury. Over the next six weeks, Brockman said, Musk and the other cofounders had intense discussions about creating a for-profit entity to raise enough capital to build artificial general intelligence—powerful AI that can compete with humans on most cognitive tasks. Musk wanted to have majority equity in the entity and the right to choose a majority of the board members. He also wanted to be its CEO, said Brockman. “是时候为 OpenAI 迈出下一步了。这就是触发事件，”马斯克在一封电子邮件中写道。布罗克曼告诉陪审团，马斯克几周前曾表示，如果 OpenAI 取得重大公开成就，就将是“创建营利性机构的时候了”。布罗克曼说，在接下来的六周里，马斯克和其他联合创始人进行了激烈的讨论，旨在创建一个营利性实体，以筹集足够的资金来构建通用人工智能（AGI）——即在大多数认知任务上能与人类竞争的强大人工智能。布罗克曼说，马斯克希望在该实体中拥有多数股权，并拥有选择多数董事会成员的权利。他还想担任该公司的首席执行官。
Brockman testified that in August 2017, he and other cofounders gathered to hash out the terms of the for-profit structure. Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s chief scientist at the time, arrived bearing a painting of a Tesla as a “token of goodwill” in return for the actual Teslas Musk had given them days earlier. “It felt a little bit like [Musk] was buttering us up, right, that he wanted us to feel indebted to him,” Brockman told the jury. When Brockman and Sutskever proposed that they all have equal shares of equity, said Brockman, Musk fell silent and finally said, “I decline.” Musk then stood up and “stormed around the table,” he said. “I actually thought he was going to hit me.” Musk grabbed the painting and walked out. 布罗克曼作证说，2017 年 8 月，他和联合创始人们聚在一起商讨营利性结构的条款。当时担任 OpenAI 首席科学家的伊利亚·苏茨克维（Ilya Sutskever）带着一幅特斯拉的画作作为“善意的象征”来到现场，以回馈马斯克几天前送给他们的真实特斯拉汽车。布罗克曼告诉陪审团：“这感觉有点像（马斯克）在讨好我们，对吧，他想让我们觉得欠他的人情。”布罗克曼说，当他和苏茨克维提议大家拥有平等的股权时，马斯克沉默了，最后说：“我拒绝。”随后，马斯克站起来，“在桌子周围横冲直撞”，他说，“我当时真的以为他要打我。”马斯克抓起那幅画，走了出去。
Brockman said that afterwards he struggled to decide whether to continue building OpenAI with Musk or break away. “There was a fork in the road,” he said. “Do we accept Elon’s terms? Or do we reject the terms, he quits to create his own, and then we create our own?” “The one thing we could not accept was to hand him unilateral, absolute control, potentially, over the AGI,” Brockman told the jury. 布罗克曼说，在那之后，他一直在纠结是继续与马斯克一起构建 OpenAI，还是分道扬镳。“当时面临一个岔路口，”他说，“我们是接受埃隆的条件？还是拒绝这些条件，让他退出并去创建自己的公司，然后我们再创建自己的？”“我们唯一不能接受的就是将对 AGI 的潜在单方面、绝对控制权交给他，”布罗克曼告诉陪审团。
What was Brockman thinking?
布罗克曼在想什么？
In his theatrical baritone, Molo argued that Brockman was motivated by greed rather than a commitment to OpenAI’s nonprofit mission to develop AI that benefits humanity. He noted that while Brockman never invested money in the company, he now owns a stake worth close to $30 billion. “Solving for the mission has always been my primary motivation,” Brockman said, pushing back on Molo’s characterization of him. “It remains so today.” 莫洛用他那戏剧性的男中音辩称，布罗克曼的动机是贪婪，而不是致力于 OpenAI 开发造福人类的人工智能这一非营利使命。他指出，虽然布罗克曼从未向公司投入资金，但他现在拥有的股份价值接近 300 亿美元。“实现使命一直是我首要的动力，”布罗克曼反驳了莫洛对他的定性，“今天依然如此。”
Molo pulled up Brockman’s electronic journal on a screen in the courtroom, trying to show the jury what Brockman was really thinking behind the scenes. In 2017, while negotiating with Musk over the terms of a for-profit entity, Brockman wrote about wanting to become a billionaire: “Financially, what will take me to $1B?” “Why didn’t you take the $29 billion and donate it to the nonprofit that you had a fiduciary duty to, for the good of humanity?” Molo asked Brockman, raising his voice. 莫洛在法庭的屏幕上调出了布罗克曼的电子日记，试图向陪审团展示布罗克曼在幕后真正的想法。2017 年，在与马斯克就营利性实体的条款进行谈判时，布罗克曼写下了关于想成为亿万富翁的内容：“在财务上，什么能让我达到 10 亿美元？”“你为什么不把那 290 亿美元拿出来，捐给你负有信托责任的非营利组织，为了人类的利益？”莫洛提高嗓门问布罗克曼。