There has always been question marks over AI companies’ use of data and treatment of copyright content. One such case was brought to light by Indian American engineer Suchir Balaji, who used to work for OpenAI. Such had worked on both OpenAI and ChatGPT. After leaving the latter, he had publicly raised concerns over OpenAI breaking the copyright law.
The 26-year-old AI researcher was recently found dead in his San Francisco apartment, according to the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
“The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) has identified the decedent as Suchir Balaji, 26, of San Francisco. The manner of death has been determined to be suicide,” said a spokesperson in a statement to TechCrunch. “The OCME has notified the next-of-kin and has no further comment or reports for publication at this time.”
Also read: OpenAI Whistleblower Suchir Balaji found dead in San Francisco apartment
Balaji worked for OpenAI for nearly four years. Out of which, the last 1.5 years were entirely dedicated for ChatGPT. He quit the company when he realised that the technology would bring more harm than good to society, he told The New York Times in an interview. He pointed out that OpenAI allegedly used copyright data, and he believed its practices were damaging to the internet.
“I was at OpenAI for nearly 4 years and worked on ChatGPT for the last 1.5 of them,” said Balaji in a post October. “I initially didn’t know much about copyright, fair use, etc. but became curious after seeing all the lawsuits filed against GenAI companies. 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.”
He even published a separate blog post where he revealed the exact nature of these violations. You can read Suchir Balaji’s post against OpenAI here – When does generative AI qualify for fair use?
Several OpenAI employees and former colleagues of Balaji have taken to social media to mourn his death. No evidence of foul play was found during the initial investigation, according to police.