Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI researcher and whistleblower, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26. Authorities have ruled his death a suicide, with no evidence of foul play. The 26-year-old had made headlines just three months earlier by accusing OpenAI of violating US copyright laws while developing its AI tool, ChatGPT.
Balaji’s allegations added fuel to the ongoing lawsuits against the company, filed by authors, journalists, and programmers who claim their copyrighted material was used illegally to train the AI model.
Balaji, who grew up in Cupertino and studied computer science at UC Berkeley, had joined OpenAI in 2020. Initially, he was optimistic about AI’s potential to solve major societal problems, such as curing diseases and combating aging. However, his perspective shifted in 2022 when he became concerned about OpenAI’s data-gathering practices. Balaji claimed that collecting vast amounts of internet data for the GPT-4 program violated “fair use” laws.
“If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company,” he told The New York Times in an October 23 interview. He argued that OpenAI’s approach was unsustainable for the internet ecosystem.
Balaji’s insights were expected to play a key role in lawsuits against OpenAI. In a court filing on November 18, attorneys for The New York Times named him as someone with “unique and relevant documents” supporting their case. He was one of at least 12 current and former OpenAI employees listed in court filings ahead of depositions.
Balaji had also shared his concerns publicly. On his personal website, he posted an analysis stating that no known factors “seem to weigh in favor of ChatGPT being a fair use of its training data.”
His death has raised questions about the pressure faced by whistleblowers and the broader ethical concerns surrounding generative AI. Meanwhile, OpenAI continues to deny the lawsuits’ claims, asserting its work is legal under “fair use” laws.