Suchir Balaji, a 26-year-old former employee of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) company OpenAI, tragically died by suicide in San Francisco, as stated in a report by PTI.
His body was discovered in his Buchanan Street apartment on November 26, according to the San Francisco Police Department and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
The medical examiner's office ruled the cause of death as suicide, and the police have stated that there is currently no evidence of foul play. Balaji was known for his whistleblowing against OpenAI, which has been embroiled in multiple lawsuits over its business practices.
Balaji’s death comes three months after he publicly accused OpenAI of violating US copyright law in its development of ChatGPT, the generative AI programme that has become a global sensation, added PTI.
The programme, which was released to the public in late 2022, has faced numerous lawsuits from authors, programmers, and journalists who allege that OpenAI unlawfully used their copyrighted content to train ChatGPT, contributing to the company’s valuation of over USD 150 billion.
In an interview with The New York Times published on October 23, Balaji criticised OpenAI for harming businesses and entrepreneurs whose data was used to train its programme. He stated that he left the company because he no longer wanted to support technologies that he believed would cause more harm than good to society.
Balaji expressed his belief that the business model employed by OpenAI was unsustainable for the broader internet ecosystem.
A native of Cupertino, Balaji graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Computer Science.
