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OpenAI engineer and whistleblower dead

by on22 December 2024

Apparent suicide

OpenAI engineer turned whistleblower Suchir Balaji has died at the age of 26. His death, confirmed as a suicide by San Francisco officials. 

Balaji’s parents, Poornima Ramarao and Balaji Ramamurthy, described their son as a “happy, smart, and brave young man” who loved hiking and had recently returned from a trip with friends. OpenAI, where he worked for nearly four years, released a statement 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  joined the company in 2018 as a summer intern while studying computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. Upon returning as a full-time employee, he worked on groundbreaking projects, including WebGPT, a precursor to the widely known ChatGPT. 

OpenAI co-founder John Schulman said: “Suchir’s contributions to this project were essential, and it wouldn’t have succeeded without him. He had a knack for finding simple solutions and writing elegant code that worked.” 

Later, Balaji worked on organising the massive datasets used to train GPT-4, the fourth generation of OpenAI’s flagship large language model. However, this work led him to question the ethics of using copyrighted material without proper permissions, a stance he publicly shared in interviews and a personal blog post. 

Balaji became a prominent voice in the debate over copyright and AI, arguing that using copyrighted materials to train AI models without consent was both unethical and illegal. He first shared his concerns with *The New York Times*, which profiled him in October, and later spoke to the Associated Press about his commitment to testifying in copyright infringement cases against AI companies. 

“It doesn’t feel right to be training on people’s data and then competing with them in the marketplace. I don’t think you should be able to do that. I don’t think you are able to do that legally,”  he said.

Balaji was named in court filings related to lawsuits brought by The New York Times and authors, including comedian Sarah Silverman, as a potential source of “unique and relevant documents” supporting claims of copyright infringement. 

Balaji’s growing unease with OpenAI extended beyond copyright issues. He was critical of the company’s approach to deploying AI products, particularly their tendency to produce inaccurate information, known as hallucinations. He also expressed skepticism about the company’s belief in the imminent arrival of artificial general intelligence. 

His decision to leave OpenAI came amid internal turmoil, including the brief ousting and reinstatement of CEO Sam Altman. Schulman, who resigned from OpenAI the same day as Balaji, said they celebrated their departures with colleagues but noted Balaji’s discontent with the company’s direction. 

Last modified on 22 December 2024
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