What AI researcher Suchir Balaji said about OpenAI before he was found dead in US

Suchir Balaji, an OpenAI whistleblower, was found dead inside his apartment in of San Francisco, according to multiple reports.

The medical examiner's office determined the manner of death to be suicide and police officials this week said there is "currently, no evidence of foul play."

"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," says the report.

"The OCME has notified the next-of-kin and has no further comment or reports for publication at this time," it added.

In October, the 26-year-old AI researcher had raised serious concerns about Sam Altman-run chatGPT maker OpenAI "breaking copyright law".

Balaji worked for nearly four years at OpenAI before quitting the company, after he realised the technology would do more harm than good to society, he told The New York Times.

"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,” said an OpenAI spokesperson.

In a post on X in October, Balaji said: "I was at OpenAI for nearly 4 years and worked on ChatGPT for the last 1.5 of them. I initially didn't know much about copyright, fair use, etc. but became curious after seeing all the lawsuits 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 defence 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 further posted.

Balaji grew up in Cupertino, California, before attending the University of California, Berkeley to study computer science.

With inputs from agencies