Suchir Balaji, a 26-year-old Indian American and former researcher at OpenAI, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment
Balaji gained attention earlier this year after publicly accusing OpenAI of violating U.S. copyright laws in the development of ChatGPT.
In 2020, he joined OpenAI, following an internship at Scale AI and Helia.
Suchir Balaji, a 26-year-old Indian American and former researcher at OpenAI, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26. The San Francisco Police Department responded to a call for a wellness check at his Buchanan Street residence in the Lower Haight neighborhood around 1 PM. Authorities later confirmed his death was a suicide, with no evidence of foul play.
Balaji gained attention earlier this year after publicly accusing OpenAI of violating U.S. copyright laws in the development of ChatGPT. He argued that the company’s methods of training AI models, which involved analysing vast amounts of online data, were unfair and harmful to creators and businesses whose content was used without proper authorisation.
In his last social media post, Balaji wrote, “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.”
Also read: OpenAI Whistleblower Suchir Balaji found dead in San Francisco apartment
Who is Suchir Balaji?
Balaji grew up in Cupertino and studied computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. During his time there, he developed a strong belief in the potential of AI to solve significant societal challenges, such as curing diseases and combating aging.
In 2020, he joined OpenAI, following an internship at Scale AI and Helia. Initially enthusiastic about the work, Balaji’s outlook shifted in 2022 when he was assigned to collect and analyse internet data for OpenAI’s GPT-4 project. He later became concerned that this process violated copyright laws, undermining the rights of content creators.
A key voice in legal battles
Balaji’s concerns became central to lawsuits against OpenAI. In a court filing, attorneys for The New York Times named him as someone with “unique and relevant documents” supporting claims that OpenAI used copyrighted material without permission. Balaji himself described OpenAI’s practices as harmful to the internet ecosystem, saying, “If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company.”
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Ayushi Jain
Tech news writer by day, BGMI player by night. Combining my passion for tech and gaming to bring you the latest in both worlds. View Full Profile
