Former OpenAI employee Suchir Balaji’s body has been found in what is described as an apparent suicide. According to the San Francisco Chief Medical Examiner’s office, his body was found in an apartment in San Francisco. Balaji, a former employee of the artificial intelligence firm, OpenAI, is famous for his interview with the New York Times, where he accused the company of breaching copyright law.
In a statement, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed his identity, noting the cause of death as suicide. “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. The office said his next of kin has been notified of the development.
Balaji’s issue with OpenAI’s alleged copyright infringement
According to his interview with the New York Times, Balaji, who had worked at OpenAI for four years, decided to quit when he realized the technology that was in the works would bring more harm than good to society. He criticized the way the company used copyright data, noting that it was damaging the internet.
An OpenAI spokesperson has also commented on the news, wishing his loved ones well. “We are devastated to learn of this incredibly sad news today and our hearts go out to Suchir’s loved ones during this difficult time,” the statement said.
According to a spokesperson for the San Francisco police department, Balaji’s dead body was discovered in his apartment on Buchanan Street on November 26. Officers and medical staff were alerted and upon getting there, they performed several wellness checks on him. The police said there was no evidence of foul play when the initial checks were carried out.
In his tweet from October, Balaji said he had been at OpenAI before leaving, working on ChatGPT over the last one and a half years. He revealed that he did not know much about copyrights and other fair use laws before the lawsuits against several generative AI companies.
When he understood what it meant, Balaji said the machine could create substitutes that would compete with the data used to train them. “When I tried to understand the issue better, I eventually concluded 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 said.
OpenAI and Microsoft face several lawsuits
OpenAI and Microsoft are currently defending several lawsuits filed against them by media companies, including the New York Times. The companies claimed that the AI firm broke copyright laws.
On November 25, a copyright lawsuit listed Balaji as part of the plaintiffs. OpenAI promised it was going to go through the custodial file related to his concerns and address the issues he raised.
Other former OpenAI employees have also raised concerns about the firm’s practices. However, only Balaji raised issues related to the data the company feeds its AI model. In a post, he discussed the company’s fair use of data, noting that it applies to every company using generative AI.
Several friends and former colleagues of Balaji have taken to social media to mourn the death of the 26-year-old. Most of them have expressed admiration for his courage to speak up against AI and copyright.
Before taking the job at OpenAI, Balaji studied computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He had stints of internships at OpenAI and Scale AI, moving to work for OpenAI after graduation.
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