Suchir Balaji, OpenAI whistleblower, found dead in San Francisco
San Francisco police were called to Suchir’s apartment by his friends and colleagues who were worried about his well-being, and they discovered his body
Suchir Balaji, a 26-year-old whistleblower who was an employee of OpenAI and had expressed concern about the company’s practices and operations, was reportedly found dead in his apartment in San Francisco on November 26.
The San Francisco police were called to Suchir’s apartment by his friends and colleagues who were worried about his well-being. The police officers discovered Suchir’s dead body in his apartment, and confirmed the death on November 26, according to news reports.
Also Read: ChatGPT violated European Union privacy laws, Italy tells OpenAI
It is said that investigators do not suspect any foul play and think it may be a case of suicide.
“Officers and medics arrived on the scene and located a deceased adult male from what appeared to be a suicide. No evidence of foul play was found during the initial investigation,” said a police statement quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Later, the director of the office of the city’s chief medical examiner told the media that the manner of death was determined to be suicide.
Suchir had accused OpenAI of copyright violations
Suchir Balaji had resigned from OpenAI in August this year, and had accused the artificial intelligence company of copyright violations. He publicly accused the company of using copyrighted material without proper authorisation in order to train its generative AI programme ChatGPT. He had also alleged that technologies like ChatGPT were damaging the internet.
Suchir, while being interviewed by the New York Times, had said that OpenAI’s practices were harmful to the internet ecosystem and detrimental to the businesses and persons whose data was used without their consent.
Also Read: NYT sues OpenAI: How the lawsuit could drill a hole in generative AI's future
In a post on X on October 24, Suchir wrote, “I recently participated in a NYT story about fair use and generative AI, and why I’m sceptical ‘fair use’ would be a plausible defence for a lot of generative AI products.”
He continued in the post that he hadn’t known much about copyright and fair use, but became curious after seeing all the lawsuits filed against GenAI companies. He said he finally came to the conclusion that fair use seemed like a pretty implausible defence for a lot of generative AI products.
Also Read: Days before Sam Altman’s removal, researchers warned board of ‘AI threat to humanity’
Elon Musk’s non-committal response
While several people expressed shock on online platforms at Suchir Balaji’s unexpected death, Tesla CEO was non-committal with his response. Musk reacted to the news of his death with a cryptic “hmm” on X.
OpenAI was co-founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman in 2015. Musk left the company in 2018 and set up another start-up xAI. There has been a feud between the two since then. Last month, Musk made the allegation that OpenAI is a monopolist.
(Suicides can be prevented. For help please call Suicide Prevention Helplines: Neha Suicide Prevention Centre – 044-24640050; Aasara helpline for suicide prevention, emotional support & trauma help — +91-9820466726; Kiran, Mental health rehabilitation — 1800-599-0019, Disha 0471- 2552056, Maithri 0484 2540530, and Sneha’s suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050.)