Our structure

Updated June 28,2023

我们的架构

更新于2023年6月28日

We designed OpenAI’s structure—a partnership between our original Nonprofit and a new capped profit arm—as a chassis for OpenAI’s mission: to build artificial general intelligence (AGI) that is safe and benefits all of humanity.

我们设计了OpenAI的结构——原始非营利机构和新的利润上限子公司之间的合作伙伴关系——作为OpenAI使命的框架：构建安全并造福全人类的人工通用智能（AGI）。

We announced our “capped profit” structure in 2019, about three years after founding the original OpenAI Nonprofit.

我们在2019年宣布了我们的“利润上限”结构，这是在成立原始的OpenAI非营利机构大约三年后。

Since the beginning, we have believed that powerful AI, culminating in AGI—meaning a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work—has the potential to reshape society and bring tremendous benefits, along with risks that must be safely addressed. The increasing capabilities of present day systems mean it’s more important than ever for OpenAI and other AI companies to share the principles, economic mechanisms, and governance models that are core to our respective missions and operations.

从一开始，我们就相信强大的人工智能，最终实现AGI——指的是一种高度自主的系统，在大多数经济上有价值的工作中胜过人类——有可能重塑社会，并带来巨大的好处，同时也带来必须安全解决的风险。当今系统日益增强的能力意味着OpenAI和其他人工智能公司更需要分享核心于我们各自使命和运营的原则、经济机制和治理模式。

Overview

概述

We founded the OpenAI Nonprofit in late 2015 with the goal of building safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity. A project like this might previously have been the provenance of one or multiple governments—a humanity-scale endeavor pursuing broad benefit for humankind.

我们于2015年末创立了OpenAI非营利机构，旨在构建安全有益的人工通用智能，造福人类。像这样的项目以前可能是一个或多个政府的专属领域——一个追求人类整体利益的人类规模的努力。

Seeing no clear path in the public sector, and given the success of other ambitious projects in private industry (e.g., SpaceX, Cruise, and others), we decided to pursue this project through private means bound by strong commitments to the public good. We initially believed a 501(c)(3) would be the most effective vehicle to direct the development of safe and broadly beneficial AGI while remaining unencumbered by profit incentives. We committed to publishing our research and data in cases where we felt it was safe to do so and would benefit the public.

由于在公共部门看不到明确的道路，并且鉴于私营行业中其他雄心勃勃的项目（例如SpaceX、Cruise等）取得了成功，我们决定通过私人途径推进这个项目，并受到对社会公益的坚定承诺。最初，我们相信501(c)(3)将是引导开发安全和广泛有益的AGI最有效的方式，同时不受盈利激励的限制。我们承诺在我们认为安全并且有利于公众的情况下，公开我们的研究和数据。

We always suspected that our project would be capital intensive, which is why we launched with the goal of $1 billion in donation commitments. Yet over the years, OpenAI’s Nonprofit received approximately $130.5 million in total donations, which funded the Nonprofit’s operations and its initial exploratory work in deep learning, safety, and alignment.

我们一直怀疑我们的项目将需要大量资金，这就是为什么我们设定了10亿美元的捐赠承诺目标。然而，多年来，OpenAI非营利机构共接收了约1.305亿美元的捐款，资助了非营利机构的运营以及在深度学习、安全性和对齐方面的初步探索工作。

It became increasingly clear that donations alone would not scale with the cost of computational power and talent required to push core research forward, jeopardizing our mission. So we devised a structure to preserve our Nonprofit’s core mission, governance, and oversight while enabling us to raise the capital for our mission:

这一点越来越清楚，仅靠捐款无法满足推动核心研究所需的计算能力和人才成本，这将危及我们的使命。因此，我们设计了一个结构，以保持我们非营利机构的核心使命、治理和监督，同时使我们能够为使命筹集资本：

The OpenAI Nonprofit would remain intact, with its board continuing as the overall governing body for all OpenAI activities.

OpenAI非营利机构将保持完整，其董事会将继续作为OpenAI所有活动的总体管理机构。

A new for-profit subsidiary would be formed, capable of issuing equity to raise capital and hire world class talent, but still at the direction of the Nonprofit. Employees working on for-profit initiatives were transitioned over to the new subsidiary.

（我们）将成立一个新的营利子公司，从而能够发行股权筹集资本并聘请世界一流的人才，但仍在非营利机构的指导下。参与营利倡议的员工将过渡到新子公司工作。

The for-profit would be legally bound to pursue the Nonprofit’s mission, and carry out that mission by engaging in research, development, commercialization and other core operations. Throughout, OpenAI’s guiding principles of safety and broad benefit would be central to its approach.

该营利子公司将被法律约束以追求非营利机构的使命，并通过参与研究、开发、商业化和其他核心运营来实施该使命。在整个过程中，OpenAI的安全和广泛受益的指导原则将成为其方法的核心。

The for-profit’s equity structure would have caps that limit the maximum financial returns to investors and employees to incentivize them to research, develop, and deploy AGI in a way that balances commerciality with safety and sustainability, rather than focusing on pure profit-maximization.

营利子公司的股权结构将设有上限，限制投资者和员工的最大财务回报，以激励他们以一种平衡商业性与安全性和可持续性的方式研究、开发和部署AGI，而不是专注于纯粹的利润最大化。

The Nonprofit would govern and oversee all such activities through its board in addition to its own operations. It would also continue to undertake a wide range of charitable initiatives, such as sponsoring a comprehensive basic income study, supporting economic impact research, and experimenting with education-centered programs like OpenAI Scholars. Over the years, the Nonprofit also supported a number of other public charities focused on technology, economic impact and justice, including the Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Index Fund, Black Girls Code, and the ACLU Foundation.

非营利机构将通过其董事会管理和监督所有这些活动，除了自身的运营之外。它还将继续开展各种慈善倡议，例如赞助综合基本收入研究，支持经济影响研究，并尝试开展以教育为中心的项目，如OpenAI Scholars。多年来，非营利机构还支持了许多其他专注于技术、经济影响和公正的公共慈善机构，包括斯坦福大学人工智能指数基金、黑人女孩编程和美国公民自由联盟基金会。

In that way, the Nonprofit would remain central to our structure and control the development of AGI, and the for-profit would be tasked with marshaling the resources to achieve this while remaining duty-bound to pursue OpenAI’s core mission. The primacy of the mission above all is encoded in the operating agreement of the for-profit, which every investor and employee is subject to:

通过这种方式，非营利机构将继续成为我们结构的核心，并控制AGI的发展，而营利子公司将负责调动资源实现这一目标，同时履行追求OpenAI核心使命的职责。使命高于一切的原则被编码到了营利子公司的经营协议中，每个投资者和员工都受其约束：

The structure in more detail

该结构的更多细节

While investors typically seek financial returns, we saw a path to aligning their motives with our mission. We achieved this innovation with a few key economic and governance provisions:

投资者通常寻求财务回报，但我们看到了一条与我们使命相一致的路径。我们通过一些关键的经济和治理条款实现了这一创新：

First, the for-profit subsidiary is fully controlled by the OpenAI Nonprofit. We enacted this by having the Nonprofit wholly own and control a manager entity (OpenAI GP LLC) that has the power to control and govern the for-profit subsidiary.

首先，这家营利子公司完全由OpenAI非营利机构控制。我们通过让非营利机构完全拥有和控制一个经营实体（OpenAI GP LLC）来实现这一点，这个实体有权控制和管理这家营利子公司。

Second, because the board is still the board of a Nonprofit, each director must perform their fiduciary duties in furtherance of its mission—safe AGI that is broadly beneficial. While the for-profit subsidiary is permitted to make and distribute profit, it is subject to this mission. The Nonprofit’s principal beneficiary is humanity, not OpenAI investors.

其次，因为董事会仍然是一个非营利机构的董事会，每位董事都必须履行其受托责任，以推进其使命——创造广泛有益的安全AGI。虽然允许营利子公司盈利和分配利润，但它受制于这一使命。非营利机构的主要受益者是人类，而不是OpenAI的投资者。

Third, the board remains majority independent. Independent directors do not hold equity in OpenAI. Even OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, does not hold equity directly. His only interest is indirectly through a Y Combinator investment fund that made a small investment in OpenAI before he was full-time.

第三，董事会仍然保持独立多数派。独立董事不持有OpenAI的股权。即使OpenAI的CEO Sam Altman也没有直接持有股权。他的唯一利益是间接的，通过Y Combinator投资基金在他全职之前对OpenAI进行的小额投资。

Fourth, profit allocated to investors and employees, including Microsoft, is capped. All residual value created above and beyond the cap will be returned to the Nonprofit for the benefit of humanity.

第四，分配给投资者和员工（包括微软）的利润是有上限的。超过上限的所有剩余价值将返还给非营利机构，以造福人类。

Fifth, the board determines when we've attained AGI. Again, by AGI we mean a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work. Such a system is excluded from IP licenses and other commercial terms with Microsoft, which only apply to pre-AGI technology.

第五，董事会确定我们何时实现了AGI。这里的AGI指的是一种高度自主的系统，能够在大多数经济上有价值的工作中胜过人类。这样的系统不包括在与微软的知识产权许可和其他商业条款中，这些条款只适用于AGI技术之前的技术。

We strive to preserve these core governance and economic components of our structure when exploring opportunities to accelerate our work. Indeed, given the path to AGI is uncertain, our structure is designed to be adaptable—we believe this is a feature, not a bug.

我们努力在探索加速工作的机会时保持我们结构的这些核心治理和经济组成部分。事实上，鉴于通向AGI的路径是不确定的，我们的结构是设计为具有适应性的——我们认为这是一种特性，而不是一个缺陷。

Microsoft

微软

Shortly after announcing the OpenAI capped profit structure (and our initial round of funding) in 2019, we entered into a strategic partnership with Microsoft. We subsequently extended our partnership, expanding both Microsoft’s total investment as well as the scale and breadth of our commercial and supercomputing collaborations.

在2019年宣布OpenAI利润上限结构（和我们的首轮融资）不久之后，我们与微软达成了战略伙伴关系。随后，我们扩大了伙伴关系，扩大了微软的总投资规模，以及我们在商业和超级计算方面的合作的广度和深度。

While our partnership with Microsoft includes a multibillion dollar investment, OpenAI remains an entirely independent company governed by the OpenAI Nonprofit. Microsoft has no board seat and no control. And, as explained above, AGI is explicitly carved out of all commercial and IP licensing agreements.

虽然我们与微软的伙伴关系包括数十亿美元的投资，OpenAI仍然是由OpenAI非营利机构管理的完全独立的公司。微软没有董事席位，也没有控制权。而且，如上所述，AGI已被明确排除在所有商业和知识产权许可协议之外。

These arrangements exemplify why we chose Microsoft as our compute and commercial partner. From the beginning, they accepted our capped equity offer and our request to leave AGI technologies and governance for the Nonprofit and the rest of humanity. They have also worked with us to create and refine our joint safety board that reviews our systems before they are deployed. Harkening back to our origins, they understand that this is a unique and ambitious project that requires resources at the scale of the public sector, as well as the very same conscientiousness to share the ultimate results with everyone.

这些安排展示了为何我们选择微软作为我们的计算和商业合作伙伴。从一开始，他们接受了我们的股权上限提议，并同意我们的请求，将AGI技术和治理留给非营利机构和其他人类。他们还与我们合作创建和完善了我们的联合安全委员会，审查我们的系统在部署之前。回溯我们的起源，他们理解这是一个独特而雄心勃勃的项目，需要像公共部门一样的资源规模，以及与所有人分享最终成果的同样良知。

Our board

我们的董事会

OpenAI is governed by the board of the OpenAI Nonprofit, comprised of OpenAI Global, LLC employees Greg Brockman (Chairman & President), Ilya Sutskever (Chief Scientist), and Sam Altman (CEO), and non-employees Adam D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley, Helen Toner.

OpenAI的治理由OpenAI非营利机构的董事会负责，由OpenAI Global, LLC的员工Greg Brockman（董事长兼总裁）、Ilya Sutskever（首席科学家）和Sam Altman（CEO），以及非员工Adam D’Angelo、Tasha McCauley、Helen Toner组成。