Whistle-blower at ChatGPT owner OpenAI found dead in San Francisco flat
Former researcher Suchir Balaji, 26, had accused the company of violating copyright law
Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI researcher of four years, was found dead in his San Francisco flat on November 26, according to multiple reports. He was 26.
Balaji had recently criticised OpenAI over how the start-up collects data from the internet to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models. One of his jobs at OpenAI was gather this information for the development of the company’s powerful GPT-4 AI model, and he’d become concerned about how this could undermine how content is created and shared on the internet.
A spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department said that “no evidence of foul play was found during the initial investigation”.
David Serrano Sewell, executive director of the city’s office of chief medical examiner, told the San Jose Mercury News “the manner of death has been determined to be suicide”. A spokesperson for the city’s medical examiner’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“We are devastated to learn of this incredibly sad news today and our hearts go out to Suchir’s loved ones during this difficult time,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement.
In October, Balaji published an essay on his personal website that raised questions around what is considered “fair use” and whether it can apply to the training data OpenAI used for its highly popular ChatGPT model.
