San Francisco: Suchir Balaji, a whistleblower from OpenAI, has been found dead in his San Francisco apartment, according to various reports. The 26-year-old AI researcher had raised significant concerns in October about OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, allegedly violating copyright laws.
The San Jose Mercury News reported that Balaji was discovered deceased in his Buchanan Street residence, with the San Francisco Police and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirming his identity. The medical examiner ruled the death a suicide, and police stated there is currently no evidence of foul play.
A spokesperson from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed Balaji’s identity and manner of death, noting that the next of kin have been informed and that no further comments will be made at this time.
Balaji had worked at OpenAI for nearly four years before resigning, expressing concerns that the technology could ultimately cause more harm than good to society, as he told The New York Times.
In an October post on X, he reflected on his time at OpenAI, stating, “I worked on ChatGPT for the last 1.5 years. Initially, I didn’t know much about copyright and fair use, but after seeing the lawsuits against generative AI companies, I became curious. I concluded that fair use is often an unlikely defense for many generative AI products because they can produce substitutes that compete with the data they were trained on.”
Balaji was raised in Cupertino, California, and later studied computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. An OpenAI spokesperson expressed their devastation at the news, offering condolences to Balaji’s loved ones during this difficult time.