Elon Musk may yet hold OpenAI to account — unlike its board


This legal battle is more than a row between billionaire tech bros, it’s about the future of AI transparency. 6park.com
马斯克的法律论据显得牵强，但他有很强的道德依据，他与奥尔特曼之间的争执关乎人工智能透明度的未来。



The plaintiff is conflicted. The legal arguments appear tenuous. And, in places, the 35-page lawsuit that Elon Musk filed last week with the Superior Court of California against OpenAI reads like a mash-up between a science fiction film script and a letter from a jilted lover. But Musk’s submission that OpenAI has breached its founding charter and endangers humanity by prioritising profit over safety may still turn into the most substantial move yet to scrutinise the company’s attempts to develop artificial general intelligence.  6park.com
原告内心矛盾。法律论据显得牵强。而且，埃隆•马斯克(Elon Musk)上周在加州高等法院(Superior Court of California)提起的针对OpenAI的35页起诉书的某些段落，看起来像是科幻电影剧本与被抛弃的情人的诉苦信的混合体。但马斯克的基本主张——OpenAI将利润置于安全之上，从而违反其创始章程，并危害人类——仍可能会成为监督该公司开发通用人工智能(AGI)尝试的迄今最为实质性的举措。 6park.com
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Since releasing its ChatGPT chatbot to slack-jawed astonishment in November 2022, OpenAI has emerged as the world’s hottest start-up with more than 100mn weekly users. The FT reported last month that OpenAI had topped $2bn in revenues on an annualised basis and had surged to a private market valuation of more than $80bn. The company has attracted $13bn of investment from Microsoft while other investors, including Singapore’s giant Temasek fund, are clamouring to jump on board. 6park.com
自2022年11月发布令人惊叹的ChatGPT聊天机器人以来，OpenAI已成为世界上最热门的初创企业，拥有超过1亿周活用户。英国《金融时报》上月报道称，OpenAI的年化营收已突破20亿美元，私募市场估值已飙升至超过800亿美元。该公司已吸引微软(Microsoft)的130亿美元投资，而新加坡巨头淡马锡(Temasek)等其他投资者也在竞相投资于该公司。 6park.com
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Yet OpenAI started out as a far less racy outfit back in 2015. As Musk’s lawsuit spells out, OpenAI was founded as a non-profit research laboratory with a mission to develop AGI — a generalisable form of AI that surpasses human capabilities in most domains — for the public good. Alarmed by the dominance of Google in the field of AI and the possible existential risks of AGI, Musk teamed up with Sam Altman, then president of Y Combinator, to create a different kind of research organisation, “free from financial obligation”. “Our primary fiduciary duty is to humanity,” the company stated. To that end, it promised to share its designs, models and code. 6park.com
然而，OpenAI在2015年起步时远非如此风头十足。就像马斯克的起诉书所指出的，OpenAI当初作为一家非营利性研究实验室成立，其使命是为了公共利益而开发通用人工智能——一种普遍性的人工智能形式，在大多数领域超越人类能力。由于对谷歌(Google)在人工智能领域的主导地位以及通用人工智能可能带来的生死存亡的风险感到震惊，马斯克联手时任Y Combinator总裁萨姆•奥尔特曼(Sam Altman)创建了一家“免受财务义务约束”的与众不同的研究组织。“我们的主要受托责任是对人类负责。”该公司当时宣示。为此，它承诺分享其设计、模型和代码。 6park.com
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Musk provided much of OpenAI’s early funding, contributing more than $44mn between 2016 and 2020, according to the lawsuit. But the non-profit entity found it hard to compete for talent with the deep-pocketed Google DeepMind, which was also intent on pursuing AGI. The extraordinary computing power needed to develop leading-edge generative AI models also sucked OpenAI into the vortex of the cloud computing provider, Microsoft.  6park.com
起诉书称，马斯克提供了OpenAI的很大一部分早期资金，在2016年至2020年期间贡献了超过4400万美元。但这家非盈利实体发现它很难与财力雄厚、也在致力于开发通用人工智能的谷歌DeepMind竞争人才。与此同时，开发领先的生成式人工智能(generative AI)模型所需的超大算力，将OpenAI吸入了云计算提供商微软的涡流。 6park.com
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That intense commercial pressure led to OpenAI establishing a for-profit entity and later setting the “founding agreement aflame” in 2023, according to the lawsuit, by accepting Microsoft’s massive investment. OpenAI was transformed into “a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the world’s largest technology company”. Its leading GPT-4 model was also incorporated into Microsoft’s services, primarily serving the giant company’s proprietary commercial interests. The failed attempt by OpenAI’s board to replace Altman as chief executive last year at least partly reflected the tensions between the company’s core founding purpose and its newfound moneymaking intent. 6park.com
起诉书称，巨大的商业压力促使OpenAI建立了一个营利性实体，而在2023年进一步接受微软的巨额投资意味着它实际上焚毁了“创始协议”。OpenAI被转型为“世界最大科技公司事实上的闭源子公司”。其领先的GPT-4模型也被集成至微软的服务，主要服务于这家巨头企业的专有商业利益。去年，OpenAI董事会试图撤换奥尔特曼作为首席执行官的失败尝试，至少部分反映了该公司的核心创立宗旨与其新发现的盈利意图之间的紧张关系。 6park.com
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Naturally, OpenAI disputes Musk’s version of events and has moved to dismiss his legal claims. In a blog post, it argued that Musk had supported OpenAI’s move to create a for-profit business entity and had even wanted to fold the company into his car business Tesla. Musk has since launched his own AI company, xAI, to compete with OpenAI and has been trying to poach some of its researchers. “It’s possible that Musk is simply techwashing and creating chaos in the marketplace,” said the Center for AI Policy. 6park.com
当然，OpenAI对马斯克的表述提出异议，并已请求法庭拒绝受理他提起的诉讼。在一篇博客文章中，该公司辩称马斯克曾支持OpenAI创建营利性商业实体的举措，甚至希望将该公司并入他的汽车业务特斯拉(Tesla)。此后，马斯克成立了自己的人工智能公司xAI，与OpenAI竞争，并一直试图挖走该公司的一些研究人员。“马斯克有可能只是在进行‘科技漂白’，在市场上制造混乱。”人工智能政策中心(Center for AI Policy)表示。 6park.com
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But Musk has a strong moral, if not a legal, case. If OpenAI were able to evolve from a sheltered non-profit enjoying charitable status into a for-profit enterprise then all start-ups would be built that way. And, as the fiasco over Altman’s firing and rehiring showed, OpenAI’s board cannot be counted on to provide robust oversight on its own.  6park.com
但马斯克即使没有很强的法律依据，也有很强的道德依据。如果OpenAI能够从一家享有慈善地位的受保护的非营利组织发展成为一家营利性企业，那么所有初创企业都会以这种方式建立。而且，就像奥尔特曼被撤职后很快被复职的闹剧所表明的那样，不能指望OpenAI董事会本身提供强有力的监督。 6park.com
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The time to create effective governance regimes for powerful AI companies is rapidly running out. This week, Anthropic, led by researchers who broke away from OpenAI in 2021, launched its Claude 3 model, which some users suggest surpasses GPT-4. “I think that AGI is already here,” Blaise Agüera y Arcas, a top Google AI researcher, told me last week. That achievement could generate great value but also pose significant risks, he argued in an essay co-written with Peter Norvig. 6park.com
留给我们为强大的AI公司创建有效治理制度的时间正在迅速流逝。本周，由2021年离开OpenAI的研究人员领导的Anthropic推出了Claude 3模型；一些用户认为该模型比GPT-4更强。“我认为通用人工智能已经到来，”谷歌AI高级研究员布莱斯•阿圭拉-阿尔卡斯(Blaise Agüera y Arcas)上周告诉我。他在与彼得•诺维格(Peter Norvig)共同撰写的一篇文章中指出，这一成就可能会产生巨大的价值，但也会带来巨大的风险。 6park.com
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Regulators are currently investigating the competition implications of Microsoft’s tie-up with OpenAI. But the US administration’s promises to create an AI Safety Institute to monitor the leading companies appear to be going nowhere fast. Some may dismiss the row between Musk and Altman as a tiresome legal battle between billionaire tech bros. But, whatever his motives, Musk is performing a notable public service in forcing more transparency and accountability at OpenAI. 6park.com
监管机构目前正在调查微软与OpenAI结盟给竞争带来的潜在影响。但拜登(Biden)政府有关成立人工智能安全研究所(AI Safety Institute)以监督领先企业的承诺似乎没有了下文。有些人可能对马斯克与奥尔特曼之间的争吵不以为意，视其为科技亿万富豪兄弟之间令人厌烦的法律战。但是，无论他的动机是什么，马斯克在迫使OpenAI提高透明度和对其问责的问题上为公共利益做了件值得注意的好事。