The second birthday of ChatGPT was only a little over a month ago, and now we have transitioned into the next paradigm of models that can do complex reasoning. New years get people in a reflective mood, and I wanted to share some personal thoughts about how it has gone so far, and some of the things I’ve learned along the way.
ChatGPT 的第二個生日距今只有一個多月，而現在我們已經進入了能夠進行複雜推理的下一個模型範式。新年總是讓人反思，我想分享一些我對這段時間的個人看法，以及在這個過程中學到的一些事情。
As we get closer to AGI, it feels like an important time to look at the progress of our company. There is still so much to understand, still so much we don’t know, and it’s still so early. But we know a lot more than we did when we started.
隨著我們逐漸接近 AGI，這是一個重要的時刻來回顧我們公司的進展。仍有許多需要理解的地方，還有很多未知的事物，而現在仍然是早期階段。但我們所知道的已經比剛開始時多得多。
We started OpenAI almost nine years ago because we believed that AGI was possible, and that it could be the most impactful technology in human history. We wanted to figure out how to build it and make it broadly beneficial; we were excited to try to make our mark on history. Our ambitions were extraordinarily high and so was our belief that the work might benefit society in an equally extraordinary way.
我們在九年前創立 OpenAI，因為我們相信 AGI 是可行的，並且它有潛力成為人類歷史上最具影響力的技術。我們希望探索如何構建 AGI，並使其能夠廣泛造福社會；我們對於能在歷史上留下自己的印記感到興奮。我們的抱負非常高，也堅信這項工作能以同樣非凡的方式惠及社會。
At the time, very few people cared, and if they did, it was mostly because they thought we had no chance of success.
當時，幾乎沒有人在乎這件事，如果有的話，大多是因為他們認為我們根本沒有成功的機會。
In 2022, OpenAI was a quiet research lab working on something temporarily called “Chat With GPT-3.5”. (We are much better at research than we are at naming things.) We had been watching people use the playground feature of our API and knew that developers were really enjoying talking to the model. We thought building a demo around that experience would show people something important about the future and help us make our models better and safer.
在 2022 年，OpenAI 是一個安靜的研究實驗室，當時正在進行一個暫時稱為“與 GPT-3.5 聊天”的項目。（我們在研究方面的表現遠勝於命名。）我們觀察到人們在使用我們 API 的遊樂場功能，開發者們對與模型的對話感到非常愉快。我們認為，圍繞這種體驗建立一個演示，將能向人們展示未來的重要性，並幫助我們改進模型，使其更加優秀和安全。
We ended up mercifully calling it ChatGPT instead, and launched it on November 30th of 2022.
我們最終仁慈地將其命名為 ChatGPT，並於 2022 年 11 月 30 日正式推出。
We always knew, abstractly, that at some point we would hit a tipping point and the AI revolution would get kicked off. But we didn’t know what the moment would be. To our surprise, it turned out to be this.
我們一直抽象地知道，總有一天我們會達到一個臨界點，人工智慧革命將會開始。但我們不知道那一刻會是什麼。令我們驚訝的是，結果竟然是這樣。
The launch of ChatGPT kicked off a growth curve like nothing we have ever seen—in our company, our industry, and the world broadly. We are finally seeing some of the massive upside we have always hoped for from AI, and we can see how much more will come soon.
ChatGPT 的推出引發了一個前所未有的增長趨勢——在我們的公司、行業以及整個世界。我們終於看到了我們一直期待的人工智慧所帶來的巨大潛力，並且可以預見未來還會有更多的成果出現。
It hasn’t been easy. The road hasn’t been smooth and the right choices haven’t been obvious.
這條路並不容易走，過程也不平順，正確的選擇並不總是顯而易見。
In the last two years, we had to build an entire company, almost from scratch, around this new technology. There is no way to train people for this except by doing it, and when the technology category is completely new, there is no one at all who can tell you exactly how it should be done.
在過去兩年裡，我們幾乎是從零開始圍繞這項新技術建立了一整個公司。除了實際操作，沒有其他方法可以訓練人們，而當這個技術類別完全是新的時候，根本沒有人能告訴你應該如何進行。
Building up a company at such high velocity with so little training is a messy process. It’s often two steps forward, one step back (and sometimes, one step forward and two steps back). Mistakes get corrected as you go along, but there aren’t really any handbooks or guideposts when you’re doing original work. Moving at speed in uncharted waters is an incredible experience, but it is also immensely stressful for all the players. Conflicts and misunderstanding abound.
在如此高速度下建立一家公司，卻只有這麼少的訓練，這是一個混亂的過程。這常常是邁出兩步卻退回一步（有時候，邁出一步卻退回兩步）。錯誤在過程中被修正，但在進行原創工作時，實際上並沒有任何手冊或指導方針。在未知的水域中快速行動是一種令人難以置信的體驗，但對所有參與者來說，這也是極其有壓力的，衝突和誤解層出不窮。
These years have been the most rewarding, fun, best, interesting, exhausting, stressful, and—particularly for the last two—unpleasant years of my life so far. The overwhelming feeling is gratitude; I know that someday I’ll be retired at our ranch watching the plants grow, a little bored, and will think back at how cool it was that I got to do the work I dreamed of since I was a little kid. I try to remember that on any given Friday, when seven things go badly wrong by 1 pm.
這些年來是我生命中最有成就、最有趣、最美好、最疲憊、最有壓力的，尤其是最後兩年，最不愉快的年份。心中充滿的感覺是感激；我知道有一天我會在我們的牧場退休，靜靜地看著植物生長，偶爾感到無聊，並回想起我從小就夢想能做的工作是多麼美好。我試著在每個星期五記住這一點，當七件事情在下午一點之前接連出錯時。
A little over a year ago, on one particular Friday, the main thing that had gone wrong that day was that I got fired by surprise on a video call, and then right after we hung up the board published a blog post about it. I was in a hotel room in Las Vegas. It felt, to a degree that is almost impossible to explain, like a dream gone wrong.
一年多前的某個星期五，那天最大的問題就是我在一次視頻通話中意外被解雇，然後我們掛斷電話後，董事會就發表了一篇關於這件事的博客文章。我當時在拉斯維加斯的一間酒店房間裡。這種感覺幾乎無法用言語形容，就像是一場夢的失敗。
Getting fired in public with no warning kicked off a really crazy few hours, and a pretty crazy few days. The “fog of war” was the strangest part. None of us were able to get satisfactory answers about what had happened, or why.
在公共場合毫無預警地被解雇，讓接下來的幾個小時變得非常瘋狂，接下來的幾天也相當不尋常。“戰爭迷霧”是最奇怪的部分。我們都無法得到令人滿意的解釋，關於發生了什麼事情，或是為什麼會這樣。
The whole event was, in my opinion, a big failure of governance by well-meaning people, myself included. Looking back, I certainly wish I had done things differently, and I’d like to believe I’m a better, more thoughtful leader today than I was a year ago.
在我看來，整個事件是善意的人，包括我自己，在治理上出現了重大失敗。回首過去，我確實希望自己能以不同的方式處理事情，我想相信今天的我比一年前更成熟、更具思考能力。
I also learned the importance of a board with diverse viewpoints and broad experience in managing a complex set of challenges. Good governance requires a lot of trust and credibility. I appreciate the way so many people worked together to build a stronger system of governance for OpenAI that enables us to pursue our mission of ensuring that AGI benefits all of humanity.
我也了解到，擁有多元觀點和豐富經驗的董事會在應對複雜挑戰方面的重要性。良好的治理需要建立大量的信任和公信力。我感謝許多人共同努力，建立一個更強大的 OpenAI 治理體系，使我們能夠追求確保 AGI 造福全人類的使命。
My biggest takeaway is how much I have to be thankful for and how many people I owe gratitude towards: to everyone who works at OpenAI and has chosen to spend their time and effort going after this dream, to friends who helped us get through the crisis moments, to our partners and customers who supported us and entrusted us to enable their success, and to the people in my life who showed me how much they cared. [1]
我最大的收穫是我有許多值得感恩的事情，以及許多人需要我感激：感謝每一位在 OpenAI 工作並選擇投入時間和精力追求這個夢想的人，感謝那些在危機時刻幫助我們的朋友，感謝支持我們並信任我們以促進他們成功的合作夥伴和客戶，還有那些在我生活中向我展示他們關心我的人。
We all got back to the work in a more cohesive and positive way and I’m very proud of our focus since then. We have done what is easily some of our best research ever. We grew from about 100 million weekly active users to more than 300 million. Most of all, we have continued to put technology out into the world that people genuinely seem to love and that solves real problems.
我們都以更具凝聚力和積極的方式回到了工作中，對於自那時以來我們的專注，我感到非常自豪。我們的研究無疑是我們有史以來最出色的之一。我們的每週活躍用戶數從約一億增長到超過三億。最重要的是，我們持續將技術推向世界，這些技術似乎真正受到人們的喜愛，並解決了實際問題。
Nine years ago, we really had no idea what we were eventually going to become; even now, we only sort of know. AI development has taken many twists and turns and we expect more in the future.
九年前，我們對於最終會成為什麼樣子完全沒有概念；即使到現在，我們也只是略有了解。人工智慧的發展經歷了許多波折，我們預期未來還會有更多的變化。
Some of the twists have been joyful; some have been hard. It’s been fun watching a steady stream of research miracles occur, and a lot of naysayers have become true believers. We’ve also seen some colleagues split off and become competitors. Teams tend to turn over as they scale, and OpenAI scales really fast. I think some of this is unavoidable—startups usually see a lot of turnover at each new major level of scale, and at OpenAI numbers go up by orders of magnitude every few months. The last two years have been like a decade at a normal company. When any company grows and evolves so fast, interests naturally diverge. And when any company in an important industry is in the lead, lots of people attack it for all sorts of reasons, especially when they are trying to compete with it.
一些轉折是愉快的，而另一些則相當艱難。看著一連串的研究奇蹟發生，讓人感到非常有趣，許多懷疑者也變成了真正的信徒。我們還看到一些同事分裂出來，成為了競爭對手。隨著規模的擴大，團隊往往會發生變動，而 OpenAI 的擴張速度非常快。我認為這其中有些是無法避免的——初創公司在每個新的主要擴張階段通常會經歷大量的人員流動，而在 OpenAI，數字每幾個月就會增加幾個數量級。過去兩年就像是在一家普通公司工作了十年。當任何公司如此快速地增長和發展時，利益自然會出現分歧。而當任何一家在重要行業中處於領先地位的公司出現時，許多人會因為各種原因對其發起攻擊，尤其是當他們試圖與之競爭時。
Our vision won’t change; our tactics will continue to evolve. For example, when we started we had no idea we would have to build a product company; we thought we were just going to do great research. We also had no idea we would need such a crazy amount of capital. There are new things we have to go build now that we didn’t understand a few years ago, and there will be new things in the future we can barely imagine now.
我們的願景不會改變，但我們的戰術將持續演變。例如，當我們剛開始時，完全沒有想到需要建立一個產品公司；我們以為只是要進行優秀的研究。我們也沒有預料到需要如此龐大的資本。現在有一些新的事物是我們必須去建立的，而這些在幾年前我們並不理解，未來還會有一些我們現在幾乎無法想像的新挑戰。
We are proud of our track-record on research and deployment so far, and are committed to continuing to advance our thinking on safety and benefits sharing. We continue to believe that the best way to make an AI system safe is by iteratively and gradually releasing it into the world, giving society time to adapt and co-evolve with the technology, learning from experience, and continuing to make the technology safer. We believe in the importance of being world leaders on safety and alignment research, and in guiding that research with feedback from real world applications.
我們對於迄今為止在研究和部署方面的成就感到自豪，並致力於持續推進我們在安全性和利益共享方面的思考。我們始終相信，讓人工智慧系統安全的最佳方式是逐步將其釋放到社會中，給予社會時間去適應並與技術共同演化，從經驗中學習，並不斷提升技術的安全性。我們認為在安全性和對齊研究方面成為全球領導者至關重要，並且應該根據來自實際應用的反饋來指導這項研究。
We are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it. We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents “join the workforce” and materially change the output of companies. We continue to believe that iteratively putting great tools in the hands of people leads to great, broadly-distributed outcomes.
我們現在有信心知道如何建立傳統上所理解的 AGI。我們相信，到了 2025 年，我們可能會看到第一批 AI 代理“加入工作行列”，並實質性地改變公司的產出。我們依然相信，逐步將優秀的工具交給人們，將會帶來偉大且廣泛的成果。
We are beginning to turn our aim beyond that, to superintelligence in the true sense of the word. We love our current products, but we are here for the glorious future. With superintelligence, we can do anything else. Superintelligent tools could massively accelerate scientific discovery and innovation well beyond what we are capable of doing on our own, and in turn massively increase abundance and prosperity.
我們開始將目標超越目前的範疇，朝向真正意義上的超智能。我們熱愛當前的產品，但我們在這裡是為了追求光輝的未來。有了超智能，我們可以實現任何可能性。超智能工具能夠大幅加速科學發現和創新，遠超過我們自身的能力，並進一步顯著提升豐富性和繁榮。
This sounds like science fiction right now, and somewhat crazy to even talk about it. That’s alright—we’ve been there before and we’re OK with being there again. We’re pretty confident that in the next few years, everyone will see what we see, and that the need to act with great care, while still maximizing broad benefit and empowerment, is so important. Given the possibilities of our work, OpenAI cannot be a normal company.
這聽起來現在像是科幻小說，談論這件事甚至有些瘋狂。不過這沒關係——我們以前也經歷過這樣的情況，我們對再次面對這種情況感到滿意。我們相當有信心，在未來幾年裡，每個人都會看到我們所見，並且以極大的謹慎行動的必要性，同時最大化廣泛的利益和賦權，這是非常重要的。考慮到我們工作的潛力，OpenAI 不能是一家普通的公司。
How lucky and humbling it is to be able to play a role in this work.
能夠參與這項工作，真是既幸運又令人謙卑。
(Thanks to Josh Tyrangiel for sort of prompting this. I wish we had had a lot more time.)
(感謝喬希·泰朗吉爾的啟發。我希望我們能有更多的時間。)
[1]
There were a lot of people who did incredible and gigantic amounts of work to help OpenAI, and me personally, during those few days, but two people stood out from all others.
在那幾天裡，有許多人為了幫助 OpenAI 和我個人付出了驚人且巨大的努力，但有兩個人特別突出。
Ron Conway and Brian Chesky went so far above and beyond the call of duty that I’m not even sure how to describe it. I’ve of course heard stories about Ron’s ability and tenaciousness for years and I’ve spent a lot of time with Brian over the past couple of years getting a huge amount of help and advice.
Ron Conway 和 Brian Chesky 的表現遠超出職責範圍，我甚至無法用言語來形容。我當然聽過許多關於 Ron 的能力和堅持不懈的故事，過去幾年我也花了很多時間與 Brian 一起，獲得了大量的幫助和建議。
But there’s nothing quite like being in the foxhole with people to see what they can really do. I am reasonably confident OpenAI would have fallen apart without their help; they worked around the clock for days until things were done.
但與人們一起在壕溝中，看到他們真正的能力，沒有什麼能比這更令人振奮。我相當有信心，如果沒有他們的幫助，OpenAI 可能會崩潰；他們日以繼夜地工作了幾天，直到所有事情都完成。
Although they worked unbelievably hard, they stayed calm and had clear strategic thought and great advice throughout. They stopped me from making several mistakes and made none themselves. They used their vast networks for everything needed and were able to navigate many complex situations. And I’m sure they did a lot of things I don’t know about.
儘管他們工作得非常努力，但始終保持冷靜，並在整個過程中展現出清晰的戰略思考和優秀的建議。他們幫我避免了幾個錯誤，而他們自己則沒有犯錯。他們利用自己龐大的網絡來滿足所有需求，並能夠應對許多複雜的情況。我相信他們還做了很多我不知道的事情。
What I will remember most, though, is their care, compassion, and support.
不過，我最深刻的記憶將是他們的關懷、同情與支持。
I thought I knew what it looked like to support a founder and a company, and in some small sense I did. But I have never before seen, or even heard of, anything like what these guys did, and now I get more fully why they have the legendary status they do. They are different and both fully deserve their genuinely unique reputations, but they are similar in their remarkable ability to move mountains and help, and in their unwavering commitment in times of need. The tech industry is far better off for having both of them in it.
我曾以為我了解支持創始人和公司的樣子，某種程度上我確實如此。但我從未見過，甚至聽說過，像這些人所做的事情，現在我更深刻地理解了他們為何擁有如此傳奇的地位。他們各自獨特，卻都值得擁有他們的獨特聲譽；同時，他們在驚人的能力上也有相似之處，能夠移山助人，並在需要的時候展現出堅定的承諾。科技行業因為有他們兩位而變得更加美好。
There are others like them; it is an amazingly special thing about our industry and does much more to make it all work than people realize. I look forward to paying it forward.
他們中還有其他人；這是我們行業中一件非常特別的事情，對於讓一切運作的貢獻遠超過人們的想像。我期待著能夠回饋社會。
On a more personal note, thanks especially to Ollie for his support that weekend and always; he is incredible in every way and no one could ask for a better partner.
在更個人的層面上，特別感謝 Ollie 在那個週末及一直以來的支持；他在各方面都非常出色，沒有人能要求更好的伴侶。