Sam Altman: OpenAI, GPT-5, Sora, Board Saga, Elon Musk, Ilya, Power & AGI | Lex Fridman Podcast #419

章节 1：开篇与董事会风波的个人回顾

📝 本节摘要：

本章以一段关于算力未来价值与 AGI 权力斗争的预告片开场。随后，Lex Fridman 正式介绍了 Sam Altman 及其公司 OpenAI 的成就（GPT-4, Sora 等）。访谈正式开始后，Lex 请 Sam 回顾 2023 年 11 月发生的董事会罢免风波。Sam 形容这是他职业生涯中最痛苦但也充满爱意的经历，仿佛“活着参加了自己的葬礼”。他坦言这段经历虽然混乱且令人心碎，但也增强了公司的韧性。Sam 确认了他一直以来的预判：通往 AGI（通用人工智能）的道路注定是一场巨大的权力斗争。最后，他描述了事后陷入的“神游状态”以及重回工作正轨的过程。

[原文] [Sam Altman]: I think compute is gonna be the currency of the future. I think it'll be maybe the most precious commodity in the world. I expect that by the end of this decade. And possibly somewhat sooner than that, we will have quite capable systems that we look at and say, wow, that's really remarkable. The road to AGI should be a giant power struggle. I expect that to be the case.

[译文] [Sam Altman]: 我认为算力（compute）将会成为未来的货币。我觉得它可能会成为世界上最珍贵的商品。我预计在这个十年结束之前，甚至可能稍微早一点，我们将拥有非常强大的系统，当我们看着它们时会惊叹：“哇，这真的很了不起。”通往通用人工智能（AGI）的道路注定是一场巨大的权力斗争。我预计情况会是这样。

[原文] [Lex Fridman]: Whoever builds AGI first gets a lot of power. Do you trust yourself with that much power?

[译文] [Lex Fridman]: 无论谁最先造出 AGI，都会获得巨大的权力。你相信自己能掌握那么大的权力吗？

[原文] [Lex Fridman]: The following is a conversation with Sam Altman, his second time in the podcast. He is the CEO of OpenAI, the company behind GPT-4, ChatGPT, Sora, and perhaps one day the very company that will build AGI. This is Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Sam Altman.,

[译文] [Lex Fridman]: 接下来是与萨姆·奥尔特曼（Sam Altman）的对话，这是他第二次做客本播客。他是 OpenAI 的首席执行官，这家公司开发了 GPT-4、ChatGPT、Sora，也许有一天，它正是那家构建出 AGI 的公司。这是 Lex Fridman 播客。为了支持本节目，请查看描述中的赞助商信息。现在，亲爱的朋友们，有请萨姆·奥尔特曼。,

[原文] [Lex Fridman]: Take me through the OpenAI board saga that started on Thursday, November 16th, maybe Friday, November 17th for you.

[译文] [Lex Fridman]: 带我回顾一下那场始于 11 月 16 日星期四，对你来说可能是 11 月 17 日星期五的 OpenAI 董事会风波（board saga）吧。

[原文] [Sam Altman]: That was definitely the most painful professional experience of my life and chaotic, and shameful, and upsetting and a bunch of other negative things. There were great things about it too and I wish it had not been in such an adrenaline rush that I wasn't able to stop and appreciate them at the time.,

[译文] [Sam Altman]: 那绝对是我职业生涯中最痛苦的经历，充满了混乱、羞耻、沮丧以及一大堆其他的负面情绪。其中也有很棒的部分，我真希望当时没有处于那种肾上腺素飙升的状态，导致我没能停下来好好体会那些美好。,

[原文] [Sam Altman]: I came across this old tweet of mine or this tweet of mine from that time period, which was it was like kind of going to your own eulogy, watching people say all these great things about you and just like unbelievable support from people I love and care about. That was really nice. That whole weekend I kind of like felt with one big exception, I felt like a great deal of love and very little hate even though it felt like I have no idea what's happening and what's gonna happen here and this feels really bad.,

[译文] [Sam Altman]: 我偶然看到了我之前发的一条旧推文，或者是那个时期发的一条推文，说那感觉就像是去参加自己的悼词宣读仪式（eulogy），看着人们说着关于你的各种溢美之词，还有那些我爱和在乎的人给予的难以置信的支持。那真的很美好。整个周末，除了一个巨大的例外，我都感觉到大量的爱，几乎没有恨，尽管当时感觉就像是“我根本不知道正在发生什么，也不知道接下来会发生什么，这种感觉真的很糟”。,

[原文] [Sam Altman]: And there were definitely times I thought it was gonna be like one of the worst things to ever happen for AI safety. Well, I also think I'm happy that it happened relatively early. I thought at some point between when OpenAI started and when we created AGI, there was gonna be something crazy and explosive that happened, but there may be more crazy and explosive things happen. It still I think helped us build up some resilience and be ready for more challenges in the future.,

[译文] [Sam Altman]: 确实有些时刻，我认为这会成为 AI 安全领域发生过的最糟糕的事情之一。不过，我也觉得很高兴它发生得相对较早。我原以为在 OpenAI 成立到我们创造出 AGI 之间的某个时间点，会发生一些疯狂且具有爆炸性的事情，当然可能还会有更多疯狂和爆炸性的事情发生。但我认为这还是帮助我们建立了一些韧性（resilience），为未来更多的挑战做好了准备。,

[原文] [Lex Fridman]: But the thing you had a sense that you would experience is some kind of power struggle.

[译文] [Lex Fridman]: 但你有一种预感，你会经历某种形式的权力斗争。

[原文] [Sam Altman]: The road to AGI should be a giant power struggle. Like the world should... Well, not should. I expect that to be the case.

[译文] [Sam Altman]: 通往 AGI 的道路注定是一场巨大的权力斗争。就像这个世界应该……嗯，不是应该。我预计情况就是这样。

[原文] [Lex Fridman]: And so you have to go through that, like you said, iterate as often as possible in figuring out how to have a board structure, how to have organization, how to have the kind of people that you're working with, how to communicate all that in order to deescalate the power struggle as much as possible, pacify it.,

[译文] [Lex Fridman]: 所以你必须经历这些，就像你说的，尽可能多地迭代，去弄清楚如何建立董事会结构，如何建立组织架构，如何选择共事的人，以及如何沟通这一切，以便尽可能地让权力斗争降级，平息它。,

[原文] [Sam Altman]: But at this point, it feels like something that was in the past that was really unpleasant and really difficult and painful. But we're back to work and things are so busy and so intense that I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. There was a time after. There was like this fugue state for kind of like the month after, maybe 45 days after that was I was just sort of like drifting through the days, I was so out of it. I was feeling so down,

[译文] [Sam Altman]: 但在这一刻，这感觉就像是一件已经过去的、非常令人不快、非常艰难且痛苦的事情。但我们已经恢复工作了，事情非常忙碌和紧张，所以我并没有花太多时间去想它。在事后的一段时间里，大概是一个月，或者 45 天左右，我处于一种神游状态（fugue state），我就像是在日子里随波逐流，整个人都不在状态。我当时情绪非常低落。,

[原文] [Lex Fridman]: Just on a personal psychological level.

[译文] [Lex Fridman]: 就仅仅是在个人心理层面上。

[原文] [Sam Altman]: Yeah. Really painful. And hard to have to keep running OpenAI in the middle of that. I just wanted to crawl into a cave and kind of recover for a while. But now it's like we're just back to working on the mission.

[译文] [Sam Altman]: 是的。真的很痛苦。而且在这种状态下还要继续运营 OpenAI 很难。我当时只想爬进一个山洞里，恢复一段时间。但现在，感觉就像是我们又回到了致力于使命的工作中。

[原文] [Lex Fridman]: Well, it's still useful to go back there and reflect on board structures, on power dynamics, on how companies are run, the tension between research, and product development, and money and all this kind of stuff so that you have a very high potential of building AGI would do so in a slightly more organized, less dramatic way in the future.,

[译文] [Lex Fridman]: 不过，回顾过去并反思董事会结构、权力动态、公司运营方式，以及研究、产品开发和资金之间的张力等所有这些事情，仍然是有用的，这样你们在构建 AGI 时拥有极高潜力的同时，未来能以一种稍微更有序、更少戏剧性的方式进行。,

[原文] [Sam Altman]: Definitely learned a lot about structure and incentives and what we need out of a board And I think that it is valuable that this happened now in some sense. I think this is probably not like the last high stress moment of OpenAI, but it was quite a high stress moment. Company very nearly got destroyed. And we think a lot about many of the other things we've gotta get right for AGI. But thinking about how to build a resilient org and how to build a structure that will stand up to a lot of pressure the world, which I expect more and more as we get closer. I think that's super important.,

[译文] [Sam Altman]: 我们确实学到了很多关于结构、激励机制以及我们需要什么样的董事会的知识。而且我认为这件事发生在现在，从某种意义上说是有价值的。我想这可能不会是 OpenAI 最后一个高压时刻，但这确实是一个相当高压的时刻。公司差点就被毁了。我们思考了很多为了实现 AGI 必须做对的其他事情。但是思考如何建立一个有韧性的组织，以及如何建立一个能够经受住世界巨大压力的结构——随着我们越来越接近目标，我预计这种压力会越来越大——我认为这超级重要。,