OpenAI whistleblower found dead by apparent suicide

• Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI researcher, was found dead on Nov. 26 in his apartment, reports say.
• Balaji, 26, was an OpenAI researcher of four years who left the company in August.
• He had accused his employer of violating copyright law with its highly popular ChatGPT model.

Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI researcher of four years, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26, according to multiple reports. He was 26.

Balaji had recently criticized OpenAI over how the startup collects data from the internet to train its AI models. One of his jobs at OpenAI was gather this information for the development of the company's powerful GPT-4 AI model, and he'd become concerned about how this could undermine how content is created and shared on the internet.

A spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department told Business Insider that "no evidence of foul play was found during the initial investigation."

David Serrano Sewell, executive director of the city's office of chief medical examiner, told the San Jose Mercury News "the manner of death has been determined to be suicide." A spokesperson for the city's medical examiner's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

"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," an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement to BI.

In October, Balaji published an essay on his personal website that raised questions around what is considered "fair use" and whether it can apply to the training data OpenAI used for its highly popular ChatGPT model.

"While generative models rarely produce outputs that are substantially similar to any of their training inputs, the process of training a generative model involves making copies of copyrighted data," Balaji wrote. "If these copies are unauthorized, this could potentially be considered copyright infringement, depending on whether or not the specific use of the model qualifies as 'fair use.' Because fair use is determined on a case-by-case basis, no broad statement can be made about when generative AI qualifies for fair use."

Balaji argued in his personal essay that training AI models with masses of data copied for free from the internet is potentially damaging online knowledge communities.

He cited a research paper that described the example of Stack Overflow, a coding Q&A website that saw big declines in traffic and user engagement after ChatGPT and AI models such as GPT-4 came out.

Large language models and chatbots answer user questions directly, so there's less need for people to go to the original sources for answers now.

In the case of Stack Overflow, chatbots and LLMs are answering coding questions, so fewer people visit Stack Overflow to ask that community for help. This, in turn, means the coding website generates less new human content.

Elon Musk has warned about this, calling the phenomenon "Death by LLM."

OpenAI faces multiple lawsuits that accuse the company of copyright infringement.

The New York Times sued OpenAI last year, accusing the start up and Microsoft of "unlawful use of The Times's work to create artificial intelligence products that compete with it."

In an interview with Times that was published October, Balaji said chatbots like ChatGPT are stripping away the commercial value of people's work and services.

"This is not a sustainable model for the internet ecosystem as a whole," he told the publication.

In a statement to the Times about Balaji's accusations, OpenAI said: "We build our A.I. models using publicly available data, in a manner protected by fair use and related principles, and supported by longstanding and widely accepted legal precedents. We view this principle as fair to creators, necessary for innovators, and critical for US competitiveness."

Balaji was later named in the Times' lawsuit against OpenAI as a "custodian" or an individual who holds relevant documents for the case, according to a letter filed on November 18 that was viewed by BI.

If you or someone you know is experiencing depression or has had thoughts of harming themself or taking their own life, get help. In the US, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, which provides 24/7, free, confidential support for people in distress, as well as best practices for professionals and resources to aid in prevention and crisis situations. Help is also available through the Crisis Text Line — just text "HOME" to 741741. The International Association for Suicide Prevention offers resources for those outside the US.