Elon Musk has questioned the death of a ChatGPT whistleblower who was found dead by suicide after speaking out against the tech company.
Former OpenAI researcher Suchir Balaji, 26, was found dead on November 26, three months after accusing the company of violating copyright laws in the development of ChatGPT.
Police said they found no evidence of foul play at the scene and ruled the death a suicide. Still, Balaji’s parents, Poornima Ramarao and Balaji Ramamurthy, have continued to question the circumstances of their son’s death.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015, weighed in on Balaji’s death in December, writing on X: “This doesn’t look like a suicide.”
The Tesla founder has battled with OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, since they rejected his offer to buy them in 2018. Musk has since criticized OpenAI for accepting $90 billion in funding, saying the commercial venture is going against its original mission. to help combat the threats to humanity posed by AI.
Musk reposted a video over the weekend of Balaji’s parents interviewing him stating that their son had been against the company becoming a for-profit organization.
‘The reason he joined OpenAI was his belief that AI will help humanity. “At first he was very impressed with OpenAI because they were non-profit,” the grieving mother said.
‘Their concern began to widen as we found out now that they were made public. That’s when his concern started to arise and he started to question himself, as he mentioned in the interview.’
Former OpenAI researcher Suchir Balaji (pictured), 26, was found dead on November 26, three months after accusing the company of violating copyright laws.

Balaji’s parents, Poornima Ramarao and Balaji Ramamurthy, continue to question the circumstances of their son’s death.

Balaji’s parents demand that the FBI investigate his death, saying “it doesn’t seem like a normal situation.”
San Francisco police officers were called to his home to conduct a welfare check when they found him deceased.
However, his parents claim there was blood in their son’s bathroom when he was found dead in an apparent suicide.
“There was no one else at the scene, that doesn’t mean (police) can come to a conclusion,” Balaji’s grieving mother said at a vigil for him, according to reports. ABC 7.
“And we’ve seen the bloodshots in the bathroom, signs of a fight in the bathroom.”
It is not clear which photos Balaji’s parents were referring to.
Balaji’s father said he was the last person who spoke to him the week of his birthday and that his son seemed happy, “not depressed or anything.”
“He made plans to see us in January,” added Ramarao, a Microsoft engineer. “That was the last phone conversation he had with anyone…

Balaji’s parents claim their son was against the company becoming a for-profit organization.

“He went into her apartment and never came out. How can anyone believe there was no note left?”
Balaji had been a researcher at the artificial intelligence 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.
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.

Musk has criticized OpenAI for accepting $90 billion in funding, saying the commercial venture goes against its original mission.

Balaji left OpenAI because he “no longer wanted to contribute to technologies that he believed would bring more harm than good to society.”
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 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.