Why trust is a big question at the Elon Musk-OpenAI trial

为什么“信任”是埃隆·马斯克与 OpenAI 诉讼案中的核心议题

Lawyers for Elon Musk and OpenAI made their closing arguments this week, and now it’s up to jurors to decide whether OpenAI did anything wrong as it’s transformed into a slightly-more-for-profit organization. But as Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I noted on the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, a big theme in the trial’s final days was whether OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is trustworthy — for example, Musk’s attorney Steve Molo grilled Altman about whether statements he’d made during congressional testimony were truthful. 本周，埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）和 OpenAI 的律师分别进行了结案陈词。现在，陪审团需要裁定 OpenAI 在转型为一家更具营利性质的组织过程中是否存在不当行为。正如 Kirsten Korosec、Sean O’Kane 和我在 TechCrunch 的《Equity》播客最新一期节目中所指出的，庭审最后阶段的一个核心议题是 OpenAI 首席执行官萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）是否值得信任——例如，马斯克的律师 Steve Molo 就奥特曼在国会作证时的言论是否属实对他进行了严厉盘问。

Kirsten noted that Musk has made plenty of misleading statements of his own, and that trust isn’t just an issue for Altman. “This is a fundamental question [for] a lot of tech journalists, policymakers, and more and more consumers, about all the AI labs,” she said. “It’s really come down to trust, because we don’t have the insight, necessarily — these are all privately held companies, there’s a lot behind the veil still.” Kirsten 指出，马斯克本人也发表过许多误导性言论，因此信任问题并非奥特曼一人所独有。她说：“对于许多科技记者、政策制定者以及越来越多的消费者来说，这是一个关于所有人工智能实验室的根本性问题。归根结底还是信任问题，因为我们未必能洞察真相——这些公司都是私营企业，仍有许多内幕被掩盖在幕后。”

Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. 请继续阅读我们对话的节选，内容已为篇幅和清晰度进行了编辑。

Anthony Ha: [The end of the trial] led to this really provocative headline from one of our writers, Tim Fernholz, [that] just says, “Who trusts Sam Altman?” Does anyone want to take a stab at answering this? Anthony Ha： [庭审结束] 引发了我们撰稿人 Tim Fernholz 的一篇极具挑衅性的文章，标题直指：“谁信任萨姆·奥特曼？” 有人想尝试回答这个问题吗？

Kirsten Korosec: Yeah, Anthony, I’m going to throw it right back to you. Do you trust Sam Altman? Kirsten Korosec： 是的，Anthony，我把这个问题抛回给你。你信任萨姆·奥特曼吗？

Anthony: It’s an interesting question because it feels like something that’s kind of a wild question to discuss in a journalistic context, but actually that’s the core of the trial, in a lot of ways. Anthony： 这是一个有趣的问题，因为在新闻语境下讨论这个问题显得有些离谱，但实际上，这在很大程度上正是此次庭审的核心。

Sean O’Kane: That’s not a yes. Sean O’Kane： 这可不是一个肯定的回答。

Anthony: And it actually seems to be [at the] core of understanding so much of what’s happened at OpenAI, especially this big executive power struggle that they now call The Blip. It just seems like a lot of people who’ve worked with Altman don’t trust him. And he’s acknowledged this a little bit, because he’ll talk about the fact that he recognizes he’s been conflict averse, telling people what they want to hear, and he’s trying to work on that. I mean, it sounds plausible, and I can understand how that can lead to misunderstandings in some situations. [But] I’m also a very conflict-averse person and I’d like to think that if any of this stuff went to trial, that people would not be asking, “Is Anthony Ha trustworthy?” Anthony： 这似乎也是理解 OpenAI 所发生的一切的核心，尤其是那场被称为“The Blip”的高层权力斗争。看起来很多与奥特曼共事过的人并不信任他。他自己也承认了这一点，他提到自己意识到过去一直回避冲突，总是对人说他们想听的话，而他正在努力改进。我的意思是，这听起来合情合理，我也能理解这在某些情况下会导致误解。[但是] 我也是一个非常回避冲突的人，我希望如果我卷入任何诉讼，人们不会问：“Anthony Ha 值得信任吗？”

Sean: Still not a yes! Sean： 还是没有正面回答！

Kirsten: I think that people would say that you are trustworthy. I will say that question, while provocative, doesn’t just encapsulate what this trial was about. I would zoom out even more and say this is a fundamental question [for] a lot of tech journalists, policymakers, and more and more consumers, about all the AI labs. It’s really come down to trust, because we don’t have the insight, necessarily — these are all privately held companies, there’s a lot behind the veil still. Maybe when they all IPO, we can get a peek, but it is fundamentally about trust and misuse, and do we believe the intent? And what I would throw back is, sometimes the intent can be worthy, noble, and still misused. It can still end up as a bit of a shit show. I think it’s more than who trusts Sam Altman — although that was very interesting in this trial — but more of that bigger question that we can apply to the entire industry. Kirsten： 我想人们会说你是值得信任的。我想说的是，这个问题虽然具有挑衅性，但并不能完全概括这次庭审的意义。我会把视野放得更宽，说这是一个关于所有 AI 实验室的根本性问题，不仅针对科技记者和政策制定者，也针对越来越多的消费者。归根结底是信任问题，因为我们未必能洞察真相——这些都是私营公司，仍有许多内幕被掩盖。也许等它们都 IPO 时，我们能窥见一二，但本质上还是关于信任和滥用，我们是否相信其初衷？我想反问的是，有时初衷可能是高尚的，但依然会被滥用，最终演变成一场闹剧。我认为这不仅仅是谁信任萨姆·奥特曼的问题——尽管这在庭审中非常引人注目——而是我们可以应用于整个行业的更大议题。

Sean: I’ll say it: I don’t trust him. But you know, I don’t trust most people, so I guess that’s just the baseline. We’ll see where this goes. The trial wraps up today. I’ve been very curious to hear how the jury decides this all. I think at the start of this, a big motivator of this was Elon Musk trying to sling mud, at a perceived rival and someone who he feels slighted him. And I don’t know if we know enough yet to say that that was completely accomplished, and whether or not he has a shot at winning. But I think all these people came out of this looking a little bit worse. Sean： 我直说了：我不信任他。但你知道，我不信任大多数人，所以我想这只是我的基准线。我们拭目以待。庭审今天结束。我很好奇陪审团会如何裁决。我认为在诉讼之初，埃隆·马斯克的一个主要动机是向他眼中的竞争对手以及他认为轻视他的人泼脏水。我不知道我们是否掌握了足够的信息来断定他是否完全达到了目的，或者他是否有胜算。但我认为，所有参与其中的人在这次事件后形象都变得更差了。

Anthony: And just to get specific, why this is coming up this week is that [Altman] was on the stand and he was basically getting grilled about some statements he’s made in the past, in testimony to [Congress], basically saying he didn’t have any equity in OpenAI. And that is not true because he had a stake through Y Combinator, which he used to run. And tried to brush that off by saying, “I assume that everybody understands what it means to be a passive investor in a VC fund.” And I think [Elon Musk’s] lawyer, somewhat fairly, said “Really? You think the congressman who was interviewing you knew that?” Anthony： 具体来说，本周之所以出现这种情况，是因为 [奥特曼] 在证人席上受到了严厉盘问，内容涉及他过去在 [国会] 作证时发表的一些言论，他当时声称自己在 OpenAI 没有任何股权。但这并非事实，因为他通过曾管理的 Y Combinator 持有股份。他试图轻描淡写地回应说：“我以为大家都明白作为风险投资基金的被动投资者意味着什么。” 我认为 [埃隆·马斯克] 的律师说得有一定道理：“真的吗？你认为采访你的国会议员知道这一点吗？”

Kirsten: Yeah, I mean, he was playing the whole semantics game. What I thought was so interesting about [this] is the style of how Sam Altman answered questions [compared to] Elon Musk on the stand. So Elon Musk, in many, many, many scenarios and many instances, we can point to the fact that he put something out on Twitter that was a lie or a bit of a fib, and on the stand corrected the record. So there’s a history of, I would say, non-truthfulness-slash-lying, blatant or otherwise, in Elon Musk’s world, but how he treated it was incredibly combative and very different than Altman who really took this [attitude of], “I’m working on it,” and tried to seem sort of affable and I don’t know if it’ll work for him. Because it really comes down to the core facts, and hopefully that’s what the jury pays attention to. But I thought that that was really interesting — both being untruthful, but how they dealt with it was very different. Kirsten： 是的，我的意思是，他在玩弄语义游戏。我认为 [这件事] 最有趣的地方在于萨姆·奥特曼在证人席上回答问题的方式 [与] 埃隆·马斯克形成了对比。埃隆·马斯克在许多情况下，我们都可以指出他在 Twitter 上发布过谎言或虚假信息，但在证人席上他又修正了记录。所以，在埃隆·马斯克的世界里，确实存在不诚实或撒谎的历史，无论是否明显，但他处理的方式极具攻击性，这与奥特曼截然不同。奥特曼采取的是一种“我正在努力改进”的态度，试图表现得和蔼可亲，我不知道这对他是否有效。因为归根结底还是核心事实，希望陪审团关注的是这一点。但我认为这非常有趣——两人都不诚实，但他们处理的方式却大相径庭。