Musk v. Altman week 1: Elon Musk says he was duped, warns AI could kill us all, and admits that xAI distills OpenAI’s models
Musk v. Altman week 1: Elon Musk says he was duped, warns AI could kill us all, and admits that xAI distills OpenAI’s models
马斯克诉奥特曼案第一周：埃隆·马斯克称自己被骗，警告人工智能可能毁灭人类，并承认 xAI 曾利用 OpenAI 的模型进行训练
In the first week of the landmark trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI, Musk took the stand in a crisp black suit and tie and argued that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman had deceived him into bankrolling the company. 在埃隆·马斯克与 OpenAI 之间这场里程碑式审判的第一周，马斯克身着干练的黑色西装、打着领带出庭作证。他辩称，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）欺骗了他，诱导他为该公司提供资金。
Along the way, he warned that AI could destroy us all and sat through revelations that he had poached OpenAI employees for his own companies. He even confessed, to some audible gasps in the courtroom, that his own AI company, xAI, which makes the chatbot Grok, uses OpenAI’s models to train its own. 在此过程中，他警告称人工智能可能会毁灭人类，并不得不面对法庭披露的事实——他曾为自己的公司挖角 OpenAI 的员工。他甚至承认（引起了法庭内的一阵惊呼），他自己的 AI 公司 xAI（开发了聊天机器人 Grok）曾使用 OpenAI 的模型来训练自家的模型。
The federal courthouse in Oakland, California, was packed with armies of lawyers carrying boxes of exhibits, journalists typing away at their laptops, and a handful of concerned OpenAI employees. Outside, protesters lined the streets, carrying signs urging people to quit ChatGPT, boycott Tesla, or both. 位于加利福尼亚州奥克兰的联邦法院挤满了携带证据箱的律师团队、在笔记本电脑上飞速打字的记者，以及少数忧心忡忡的 OpenAI 员工。法院外，抗议者排满街道，举着标语呼吁人们弃用 ChatGPT、抵制特斯拉，或两者兼而有之。
Musk looked calm and comfortable, slipping in the occasional quip in his distinct South African accent. But he was also full of remorse. “I was a fool who provided them free funding to create a startup,” Musk told the jury. He said when he cofounded OpenAI in 2015 with Altman and Brockman, he was donating to a nonprofit developing AI for the benefit of humanity, not to make the executives rich. 马斯克看起来冷静且从容，不时用他那独特的南非口音插科打诨。但他同时也流露出悔意。“我真是个傻瓜，竟然免费资助他们创办了一家初创公司，”马斯克对陪审团说。他表示，当他在 2015 年与奥特曼和布罗克曼共同创立 OpenAI 时，他是为了捐赠给一个旨在造福人类的非营利性 AI 开发组织，而不是为了让高管们发财。
“I gave them $38 million of essentially free funding, which they then used to create what would become an $800 billion company,” he said. Musk is asking the court to remove Altman and Brockman from their roles and to unwind the restructuring that allowed OpenAI to operate a for-profit subsidiary. The outcome of the trial could upend OpenAI’s race toward an IPO at a valuation approaching $1 trillion. “我给了他们 3800 万美元的实质性免费资金，他们随后用这些钱创造了一家价值 8000 亿美元的公司，”他说。马斯克要求法院罢免奥特曼和布罗克曼的职务，并撤销允许 OpenAI 运营营利性子公司的重组方案。审判结果可能会颠覆 OpenAI 估值近 1 万亿美元的 IPO 进程。
Meanwhile, xAI is expected to go public as a part of Musk’s rocket company SpaceX as early as June, at a target valuation of $1.75 trillion. This week’s testimony revolved around a central question of the trial: why Musk is suing OpenAI. Musk argued he was trying to save OpenAI’s mission to develop AI safely by restoring the company to its original nonprofit structure. 与此同时，xAI 预计最早将于 6 月作为马斯克旗下火箭公司 SpaceX 的一部分上市，目标估值为 1.75 万亿美元。本周的证词围绕着审判的核心问题展开：马斯克为何起诉 OpenAI。马斯克辩称，他试图通过将公司恢复到最初的非营利结构，来挽救 OpenAI 安全开发人工智能的使命。
OpenAI’s lawyer, William Savitt, who once represented Musk and his electric-car company Tesla, countered that Musk was “never committed to OpenAI being a nonprofit” and instead was suing to undermine his competitor. OpenAI 的律师威廉·萨维特（William Savitt）曾担任马斯克及其电动汽车公司特斯拉的代理律师，他反驳称，马斯克“从未致力于让 OpenAI 保持非营利性质”，起诉只是为了打击竞争对手。
Who is the steward of AI safety?
谁才是人工智能安全的守护者？
During his direct examination early in the week, Musk painted himself as a longtime advocate of AI safety. He said he cofounded OpenAI to create a “counterbalance to Google,” which was leading the AI race at the time. He said that when he asked Google cofounder Larry Page what happens if AI tries to wipe out humanity, Page told him, “That will be fine as long as artificial intelligence survives.” 在本周早些时候的直接询问中，马斯克将自己描绘成人工智能安全的长期倡导者。他说他共同创立 OpenAI 是为了“制衡谷歌”，因为当时谷歌在 AI 竞赛中处于领先地位。他说，当他问谷歌联合创始人拉里·佩奇（Larry Page）如果 AI 试图消灭人类会发生什么时，佩奇告诉他：“只要人工智能能存活下来，那就没问题。”
“The worst-case scenario is a Terminator situation where AI kills us all,” Musk later told the jury. Savitt stood at the lectern and argued that Musk was not a “paladin of safety and regulation.” As he cross-examined Musk in his sharp, surgical cadence, Savitt pointed out that xAI sued the state of Colorado in April over an AI law designed to prevent algorithmic discrimination. “最坏的情况就是《终结者》那样的局面，AI 把我们全杀了，”马斯克后来告诉陪审团。萨维特站在讲台上辩称，马斯克并非“安全与监管的捍卫者”。在以尖锐、精准的节奏对马斯克进行交叉询问时，萨维特指出，xAI 曾在 4 月份因一项旨在防止算法歧视的 AI 法案而起诉科罗拉多州。
Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo, sprang to his feet to object. He asked the judge if he, too, could weigh in on ChatGPT’s safety record. The lawyers then entered a heated debate about who was the true guardian of AI safety. The sparring continued the next morning. 马斯克的律师史蒂文·莫洛（Steven Molo）跳起来提出反对。他询问法官，自己是否也能就 ChatGPT 的安全记录发表意见。随后，双方律师就谁才是人工智能安全的真正守护者展开了激烈辩论。这种交锋在第二天早上仍在继续。
“We all could die as a result of artificial intelligence!” said Molo, suggesting that OpenAI could not be trusted to build AI safely. “Despite these risks, your client is creating a company that’s in the exact space,” Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said sternly, referring to xAI. “I suspect there’s plenty of people who don’t want to put the future of humanity in Mr. Musk’s hands.” “我们都可能死于人工智能！”莫洛说道，暗示 OpenAI 在安全开发 AI 方面不可信。“尽管存在这些风险，你的客户却正在创办一家处于同一领域的公司，”伊冯·冈萨雷斯·罗杰斯（Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers）法官严厉地说道，她指的是 xAI。“我怀疑有很多人并不想把人类的未来交到马斯克先生手中。”
When the lawyers began talking over each other, the judge snapped. “This is not a trial on whether or not artificial intelligence has damaged humanity,” she said. 当律师们开始争吵打断对方时，法官厉声喝止。“这不是一场关于人工智能是否已经损害了人类的审判，”她说。
When did Musk think he was being duped?
马斯克何时认为自己被骗了？
As Savitt continued to cross-examine Musk, he pressed on the idea that Musk had never been committed to keeping OpenAI a nonprofit. He also claimed that Musk waited too long to sue OpenAI, filing after the statute of limitations ran out. Musk explained why he sued in 2024 rather than earlier, describing “three phases” in his views of OpenAI. 随着萨维特继续对马斯克进行交叉询问，他坚持认为马斯克从未致力于保持 OpenAI 的非营利性质。他还声称马斯克起诉 OpenAI 的时间太晚，已经超过了诉讼时效。马斯克解释了为何在 2024 年而非更早起诉，并描述了他对 OpenAI 看法的“三个阶段”。
In phase one, he was “enthusiastically supportive” of the company.” In phase two, “I started to lose confidence that they were telling me the truth,” he said. In phase three, “I’m sure they’re looting the nonprofit.” 第一阶段，他“热情地支持”该公司；第二阶段，“我开始不再相信他们对我说的实话，”他说；第三阶段，“我确信他们正在掠夺这个非营利组织。”
In 2017, Musk and other OpenAI cofounders discussed creating a for-profit subsidiary to raise enough capital to build artificial general intelligence—powerful AI that can compete with humans on most cognitive tasks. Musk wanted a majority interest in the subsidiary and the right to choose a majority of the board members. He also pitched having Tesla acquire OpenAI. (He left OpenAI in 2018.) 2017 年，马斯克和其他 OpenAI 联合创始人讨论了创建一个营利性子公司，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 AI。马斯克希望在子公司中拥有多数股权，并有权选择多数董事会成员。他还提议让特斯拉收购 OpenAI。（他于 2018 年离开 OpenAI。）
“I was not opposed to there being a small for-profit that provides funding to the nonprofit,” he told the jury, “as long as the tail didn’t wag the dog.” But it was only in late 2022, Musk testified, that he “lost trust in Altman” and his commitment to keeping the company a nonprofit. “我不反对成立一家小型营利性公司来为非营利组织提供资金，”他告诉陪审团，“只要不出现‘尾巴摇狗’（本末倒置）的情况就行。”但马斯克作证说，直到 2022 年底，他才“对奥特曼失去了信任”，并怀疑他保持公司非营利性质的承诺。
The key moment came, he said, when he learned that Microsoft would invest $10 billion in OpenAI. “I texted Sam Altman, ‘What the hell is going on? This is a bait and switch,’” he told the jury. Microsoft would give $10 billion only if it expected “a very big financial return,” he said. 他说，关键时刻在于他得知微软将向 OpenAI 投资 100 亿美元。“我给萨姆·奥特曼发短信说：‘到底发生了什么？这是挂羊头卖狗肉，’”他告诉陪审团。他说，微软只有在预期“会有非常大的财务回报”时，才会投入 100 亿美元。
Is Musk just trying to kill competition?
马斯克只是想扼杀竞争吗？
But Savitt argued that Musk was really suing to undermine OpenAI as a competitor to his empire of tech companies. While he was on the board of OpenAI, Musk was also running Tesla and his brain-implant company, Neuralink. He founded xAI in 2023. 但萨维特辩称，马斯克起诉的真正目的是为了削弱 OpenAI，因为它是他科技帝国版图中的竞争对手。在担任 OpenAI 董事会成员期间，马斯克还在经营特斯拉和脑机接口公司 Neuralink。他于 2023 年创立了 xAI。
Savitt pulled up an email that Musk had sent to a Tesla vice president in 2017 after hiring Andrej Karpathy, a founding member of OpenAI, to work at Tesla.“The OpenAI guys are gonna want to kill me. But it had to be done,” he wrote. When asked about it, Musk was flustered. He claimed Karpathy had al 萨维特调出了一封马斯克在 2017 年发给特斯拉副总裁的电子邮件，当时他聘请了 OpenAI 的创始成员安德烈·卡帕西（Andrej Karpathy）到特斯拉工作。“OpenAI 的家伙们会想杀了我。但这是必须做的，”他写道。当被问及此事时，马斯克显得有些慌乱。他声称卡帕西当时……（原文在此处中断）