A former OpenAI employee and whistleblower, Suchir Balaji, was recently found dead in his apartment in San Francisco, California. The San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has identified Balaji, 26, as the deceased person, according to a source. The manner of death has been ruled suicide. Balaji's family has been notified by the medical examiner.
Balaji was discovered in his Buchanan Street apartment on November 26, as confirmed by a spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department. First responders conducted a wellness check at his residence, and no signs of foul play were detected during the initial investigation.
OpenAI expressed deep sorrow upon learning of Balaji's passing, extending condolences to his loved ones during this challenging period. Balaji, an AI researcher, had recently raised concerns about OpenAI allegedly violating copyright law in an interview in October.
Having worked at OpenAI for nearly four years, Balaji resigned after concluding that the technology being developed could potentially cause more harm than good to society. His primary apprehension revolved around the company's purported use of copyright data, which he believed was detrimental to the internet.
In a social media post in October, Balaji shared his insights, stating, 'I was at OpenAI for nearly 4 years and worked on ChatGPT for the last 1.5 of them. I initially didn't know much about copyright, fair use, etc. but became curious after seeing all the lawsuits filed against GenAI companies.'
He further elaborated, 'When I tried to understand the issue better, I eventually came to the conclusion that fair use seems like a pretty implausible defense for a lot of generative AI products, for the basic reason that they can create substitutes that compete with the data they’re trained on.'
Currently, OpenAI and Microsoft are facing multiple lawsuits from media outlets accusing OpenAI of copyright law violations. Source has reached out to the medical examiner and San Francisco Police for further information.
