Indian-origin OpenAI whistleblower dies by suicide in San Francisco: Authorities

PTI, Dec 14, 2024, 10:51 AM IST

A 26-year-old Indian-origin former employee of the artificial intelligence giant OpenAI has died by suicide in San Francisco, authorities said.

Suchir Balaji was found dead inside his Buchanan Street apartment in San Francisco on November 26, San Francisco police and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner were quoted as saying by The Mercury News.

The medical examiner’s office determined the manner of death to be suicide and police officials said there is “currently, no evidence of foul play.”

Balaji was known for whistleblowing the blockbuster artificial intelligence company which is facing a swell of lawsuits over its business model.

Balaji’s death comes three months after he publicly accused OpenAI of violating US copyright law while developing ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence programme that has become a moneymaking sensation used by hundreds of millions of people across the world, the report said.

Its public release in late 2022 spurred a torrent of lawsuits against OpenAI from authors, computer programmers and journalists, who say the company illegally stole their copyrighted material to train its programme and elevate its value past USD 150 billion.

In an interview with the New York Times published on October 23, Balaji argued that OpenAI was harming businesses and entrepreneurs whose data were used to train ChatGPT.

Balaji left OpenAI because he no longer wanted to contribute to technologies that he believed would bring society more harm than benefit, the report added.

“If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company,” he told the outlet, adding that “this is not a sustainable model for the internet ecosystem as a whole.”

Balaji grew up in Cupertino before attending UC Berkeley to study computer science.

Meanwhile, Balaji’s mother has requested privacy while grieving the death of her son, the Mercury News reported.