Suchir Balaji, OpenAI Whistleblower, Discovered Deceased in US Apartment

San Francisco, Dec 14 (NationPress) Suchir Balaji, a whistleblower at OpenAI, was tragically found deceased in his apartment, according to numerous reports.

In October, the 26-year-old AI researcher expressed significant concerns regarding the copyright infringements occurring within the Sam Altman-led chatGPT developer, OpenAI.

The San Jose Mercury News reported that Balaji was found dead in his apartment on Buchanan Street, as confirmed by the San Francisco Police and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

The office of the medical examiner has classified the cause of death as suicide, and police officials stated this week that there is currently no evidence of foul play.

"The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) has identified the individual as Suchir Balaji, 26, of San Francisco. The manner of death has been classified as suicide," a spokesperson stated in reports.

"The OCME has informed the next-of-kin and has no further comments or reports for publication at this time," the spokesperson added.

Balaji was employed at OpenAI for nearly four years before resigning, as he believed that the technology could cause more harm than good to society, he shared with The New York Times.

"We are heartbroken to hear this profoundly sad news today, and our sympathies go out to Suchir’s loved ones during this trying time," an OpenAI spokesperson remarked.

In a post on X in October, Balaji mentioned: "I spent nearly 4 years at OpenAI and dedicated the last 1.5 years to working on ChatGPT. Initially, I wasn’t well-versed in copyright, fair use, etc., but I grew curious after witnessing the numerous lawsuits against Generative AI firms."

"As I sought to understand the issue more thoroughly, I ultimately concluded that fair use appears to be an unlikely defense for many generative AI products, primarily because they can produce substitutes that rival the data they were trained on," he further elaborated in his post.

Balaji was raised in Cupertino, California before enrolling at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied computer science.