Parents of Suchir Balaji, ex-OpenAI engineer and whistleblower found dead in San Francisco, have demanded an FBI probe, alleging foul play.
Published Jan 02, 2025 | 6:53 PM ⚊ Updated Jan 02, 2025 | 7:09 PM
A young Suchir Balaji (right) with his parents, Balagi Ramamurthy and Poornima Ramarao. (X)
In October 2024, former OpenAI researcher Suchir Balaji told The New York Times that the company had violated copyright law by illegally collecting enormous troves of data from the World Wide Web to build its generative text models, such as GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformers), which underpin its successful chatbot, ChatGPT.
The 26-year-old Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco flat a little over a month later.
In his detailed interview with the Times, Balaji accused OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed artificial intelligence research firm valued at over $150 billion, of “destroying” the commercial viability of individuals, businesses, and internet services that created the vast digital datasets used to train transformer models.
Born and raised in San Francisco to South Indian immigrant parents, Balaji was initially employed by OpenAI in 2020 to work on a precursor to ChatGPT and later transitioned into help the firm collect and organise training data. However, following the release and rapid success of ChatGPT in late 2022, Balaji felt conflicted about his work training something that he believed was harming the internet and thousands of creators.
ChatGPT set a record for the fastest-growing user base, reaching 100 million monthly active users in January 2023. (Pexels)
In a blog post, he outlined what he saw as problems with existing models by which AI companies such as OpenAI deal with information on the internet, ignoring commercial and copyright laws, as well as the socio-economic impact of their products.
“While generative models rarely produce outputs that are substantially similar to their training inputs, the process of training a generative model involves making copies of copyrighted data,” Balaji wrote. “If these copies are unauthorised, this could potentially constitute copyright infringement, depending on whether 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.”
This was also a time when creators – independent artists, writers and publishers – were considering ways to seek legal protection against their intellectual property being used by AI companies without consent or appropriate compensation. A lawsuit filed by the Times against OpenAI and Microsoft alleged millions of its articles were used by the company without its consent. Balaji was named as a “custodian”.
In response to the growing scrutiny and backlash, OpenAI defended its practices, stating: “We build our AI 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.”
However, matters escalated when news broke of Balaji’s death, in an apparent case of suicide.
San Francisco police found Balaji dead in his flat after his mother, Poornima Ramarao, filed a missing persons report in Union City, California, where she lives. She had been unable to contact her son for several days prior to that, according to The Guardian.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (Wikimedia Commons)
While authorities initially concluded there was no evidence of foul play, speculation immediately gripped social media users, with many finding it suspicious that a whistleblower died by suicide mere months after the initial allegations emerged.
Many also drew parallels between Balaji and John Barnett, a whistleblower who had raised concerns about safety and production standards at aerospace company Boeing.
Barnett had stated before his death that he would not take his own life and that if anything were to happen to him, it would indicate foul play. Nevertheless, Barnett’s death earlier in the year was ruled a suicide.
OpenAI expressed condolences, saying: “We are devastated to learn of this incredibly sad news, and our hearts go out to Suchir’s loved ones during this difficult time.”
Balaji’s parents, however, disputed the police’s classification of the death as suicide, asserting that their son had shown no signs of suicidal intent. Ramarao highlighted discrepancies in the authorities’ account, stating that the medical examiner declared the death a suicide within less than a minute. Police claimed Balaji had shot himself and that a gun was found beside his body, but no note was discovered.
“We are the parents of happy, smart and brave young man Suchir, found dead in his apartment on 26 Nov, 2024. We are seeking to know complete truth, we need more answers. Suchir just went on vacation with his friends between 16 Nov, 2024 and 22 Nov, 2024. He was very happy when he spoke to family on 22 Nov, 2024 at 7.15 pm and was excited about his trip. His time of death is few hours after his last call with family. We don’t understand within few hours what happened does not align with his happy mood and return from vacation,” she wrote in a post on X.
CEO Suchir, looking at his body language and confidence. He is glowing pic.twitter.com/t2NHQaVm1y
— Poornima Rao (@RaoPoornima) December 30, 2024
On 29 December 2024, Ramarao detailed her concerns further, demanding an FBI investigation. “We hired a private investigator and conducted a second autopsy to shed light on the cause of death. The private autopsy does not corroborate the police’s conclusion. Suchir’s apartment was ransacked, there were signs of a struggle in the bathroom, and blood spots suggest he was struck there. It is a cold-blooded murder, misclassified as suicide. Lobbying in San Francisco will not deter us from seeking justice. We demand an FBI investigation,” she wrote in a post on X.
Elon Musk, co-founder of OpenAI and a former investor who parted ways with the company following disagreements with its controversial CEO, Sam Altman, has also raised doubts about the official suicide ruling.
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
