Why is trust a big question in the Elon Musk-OpenAI experiment?

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 transformed into a slightly more for-profit organization.

But as Kirsten Korosek, Sean O’Kane, and I noted in a recent episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, the big topic in the final days of the trial was whether Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, was trustworthy — for example, Steve Molo, Musk’s lawyer, questioned Altman about whether statements he made during his testimony before Congress were truthful.

Kirsten pointed out that Musk has made a lot of misleading statements of his own, and that this trust isn’t just an issue for Altman.

“This is a fundamental question [for] “A lot of technology journalists, policymakers, and more and more consumers are talking about all the AI ​​labs,” she said. “It’s really trustworthy, because we don’t have the insight, necessarily — these are all privately owned companies, and there’s still a lot behind the veil.”

Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Anthony Ha: [The end of the trial] It led to this really provocative headline from one of our writers, Tim Fernholz, [that] He just says, “Who trusts Sam Altman?” Does anyone want to try to answer this?

Kirsten Korosek: Yes, Anthony, I’ll bring it right back to you. Do you trust Sam Altman?

Anthony: It’s an interesting question because it seems like a wild question to discuss in a journalistic context, but in fact that’s the crux of the trial, in many ways.

Sean O’Kane: This is not a yes.

Anthony: It appears that this is indeed the case [at the] The core of understanding a lot of what happened at OpenAI, especially this big struggle for executive power that they now call The Blip.

A lot of people who worked with Altman don’t seem to trust him. And he’ll admit it a little bit, because he’ll talk about the fact that he realizes that he used to hate conflict, and telling people what they want to hear, and he’s trying to work on that.

I mean, it makes sense, and I can understand how that could lead to misunderstanding in some situations. [But] I’m also a very conflict-averse person and I’d like to think that if any of this went to trial, people wouldn’t be asking, “Is Anthony Ha trustworthy?”

Shawn: Still not yes!

Kirsten: I think people would say you’re trustworthy. I will say that this question, although provocative, does not just sum up the subject of this trial. I would like to zoom out further and say that this is a basic question [for] Lots of technology journalists, policymakers, and more and more consumers are talking about all the AI ​​labs. It’s really come down to trust, because we don’t have the foresight, necessarily — these are all privately owned companies, and there’s still a lot behind the veil.

Maybe when the IPO happens, we can catch a glimpse, but it’s mainly about trust and abuse, do we believe the intent? What I would like to take away from you is that sometimes an intention can be worthy and noble, and yet be misused. It could still end up as some kind of bullshit show. I think it’s not just about who trusts Sam Altman – although that was interesting in this experiment – but it’s more about this bigger question that we can apply to the entire industry.

Shawn: I’ll say it: I don’t trust him. But you know, I don’t trust most people, so I guess that’s just a baseline.

We’ll see where this goes. The trial ends today. I was very curious to hear how the jury decided all of this. I think at the beginning of this, a big impetus for this was Elon Musk trying to throw mud at a potential competitor and someone who he felt insulted him. I don’t know if we know enough yet to say it’s all done, and whether or not he has a chance to win. But I think all these people came out of this looking a little worse off.

Anthony: And just to be specific, the reason this came out this week is just that [Altman] He was on the stand and he was being questioned about some statements he had made in the past, in his testimony [Congress]essentially saying that he doesn’t have any shares in OpenAI. This is not true because he had a stake through Y Combinator, which he ran. She tried to brush it off by saying, “I assume everyone understands what it means to be a passive investor in a venture capital fund.” And I believe [Elon Musk’s] And the lawyer said, more or less, “Really? Do you think the congressman who was interviewing you knew that?”

Kirsten: Yeah, I mean he was playing the whole semantics game. Which I thought was interesting [this] It’s the way Sam Altman answers questions [compared to] Elon Musk on stage.

So, Elon Musk, in many, many, many scenarios and instances, we can point to the fact that he posted something on Twitter that was a lie or a lie, and he on the platform corrected the record. So, there’s a history of dishonesty and blatant lying or whatever in the Elon Musk world, but the way he handled it was incredibly combative and very different from Altman, who really took it. [attitude of]”I’m working on it,” he said and tried to sound kind of nice and I don’t know if it would work for him.

Because it’s really about the basic facts, and hopefully that’s what the jury pays attention to. But I thought that was really interesting – they’re both dishonest, but their way of dealing with it was very different.