A former OpenAI researcher turned whistleblower was found dead in his San Francisco just months after making damning claims about the company.
Suchir Balaji, 26, was found dead on November 26, three months after accusing the company of violating copyright laws in the development of ChatGPT.
Mercury News He reported that no crime was determined in the circumstances of his death, which has been ruled a suicide.
San Francisco police officers were called to the home to conduct a welfare check when they found him.
Balaji had been a researcher at the artificial intelligence research company for four years after joining in 2020.
After the launch of the artificial intelligence system in 2022, Balaji began to wonder if the data collected infringed copyright.
In August, he left OpenAI because he “no longer wanted to contribute to technologies that he believed would bring more harm than good to society,” the report reported. New York Times.
“If you believe in what I believe, you just have to leave the company,” he told the outlet.
Suchir Balaji, 26, was found dead on November 26, three months after accusing the company of violating copyright laws in the development of ChatGPT.
Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment, seen here. On November 26, police said they suspected “foul play” and his death was ruled a suicide.
Over the past two years, companies like OpenAI have been sued by several individuals and companies over claims over their copyrighted material.
His role and knowledge in the legal proceedings against the company were considered “crucial”.
The New York Times was involved in its own lawsuit against OpenAI and its main partner, Microsoft, who denied claims that they had used millions of published articles to report intelligence and, as a result, began competing with the outlet.
On Nov. 18, the outlet filed a letter in federal court naming Balaji as a person with “unique and relevant documents” that would be used in its litigation against Open AI.
Their lawsuit said: “Microsoft and OpenAI simply take the work product of reporters, journalists, editorial writers, editors and others who contribute to the work of local newspapers, all without regard to the efforts, much less the legal rights, of those create and publish the news that local communities depend on.
While other researchers have warned of possible future risks from the technology, such as it becoming a danger to humanity, Balaji told the Times he believes the risk is much more “immediate” than feared.
He added: “I thought AI was something that could be used to solve unsolvable problems, like curing diseases and stopping aging.” I thought we could invent some kind of scientist who could help solve them.
Balaji said he believed the threats posed by chatbots, such as ChatGPT, were destroying the commercial viability of the individuals, businesses and internet services that created the digital data used to train such systems.
“This is not a sustainable model for the Internet ecosystem as a whole,” he said.
While OpenAI, Microsoft and other companies have claimed that their use of Internet data to train the technology is considered “fair use,” Balaji does not believe the criteria have been met.
Balaji had been a researcher at the artificial intelligence research company for four years and was involved in collecting Internet data to help develop ChatGPT.
While OpenAI, Microsoft and other companies have claimed that their use of Internet data to train the technology is considered “fair use,” Balaji does not believe the criteria have been met.
He stated that while the data is not copied into an exact replica, it is also not different enough.
In an October post on his X account, he said he “concluded that fair use seems like a pretty implausible defense” for AI products.
X and Tesla CEO Elon Musk reacted to the news of his death on their platform, writing a cryptic post that read: ‘Hmmm.’
Balaji further argued that it violates the law due to direct competition with the same information from which it obtained and learned.
The biggest problem, he argued, is that the technology replaces existing Internet services and often generates false or completely fabricated information.
OpenAI said in a statement about his death: “We are devastated to learn this incredibly sad news today and our hearts go out to Suchir’s loved ones during this difficult time.”