Suchir Balaji: OpenAI Breaks Silence Over Whistleblower's Death

Almost two months after a 26-year-old OpenAI former employee and 'whistleblower' was found dead at his San Francisco apartment, the artificial intelligence company issued a statement. Suchir Balaji, an Indian-American artificial intelligence researcher, reportedly died in November 2024, days after he participated in an article about generative AI companies misusing ethics and fair use terms. OpenAI reacted in a statement, saying he was a "valued member" of their team. 

The Sam Altman-founded organisation said on X, "...we are still heartbroken by his passing. We continue to feel his loss deeply.  We have reached out to the San Francisco Police Department and have offered our assistance if it's needed." They added they they would not further comment on the incident "out of respect."

pic.twitter.com/LBThrROv3W

— OpenAI Newsroom (@OpenAINewsroom) January 16, 2025

While police initially said that the cause of death was suicide, Balaji's mother, Poornima Ramarao has demanded a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into the case. In a post on X, she stated that the family hired a private investigator and did a second autopsy which "doesn't confirm" the police's conclusion. She added details that corroborated her suspicion that Balaji had not taken his own life.

'Not A Suicide': Suchir Balaji's Parents Demand Justice

Poornima Ramarao wrote on X that there was evidence found at the crime scene, suggesting Suchir Balaji had not died by suicide. She claimed that his San Francisco flat was found "ransacked" with signs of struggle in some areas. "There was a sign of struggle in the bathroom and it looks like someone hit him in the bathroom based on blood spots," she alleged.

"It's a cold-blooded murder declared by authorities as suicide. Lobbying in SF city doesn't stop us from getting justice," Poornima Ramarao wrote.

She demanded the involvement of America's federal investigators and also tagged billionaire Elon Musk and Indo-American entrepreneur-politician Vivek Ramaswamy. Musk, who has had a long-standing feud with OpenAI founder Sam Altman responded, "This doesn't seem like a suicide."

Balaji's father, Balaji Ramamurthy, recently said at a vigil in Milpitas, California, that he sounded like he was in a good mood when they last spoke to him-- November 22-- when he was celebrating his birthday. "He was in LA and having a good time. So he sent us all the pictures. He was in a good mood," he told The Guardian.

Update on @suchirbalaji

We hired private investigator and did second autopsy to throw light on cause of death. Private autopsy doesn’t confirm cause of death stated by police.

Suchir’s apartment was ransacked , sign of struggle in the bathroom and looks like some one hit him…

— Poornima Rao (@RaoPoornima) December 29, 2024

What Happened To Suchir Balaji?

According to Suchir Balaji's LinkedIn profile, he worked for OpenAI from November 2020 to August 2024 as a member of their technical staff. Weeks before his death, the Indian-American researcher had alleged that the generative AI company was violating copyright law.

“If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company,” Balaji said in an interview with The New York Times. He made more claims including that such technology was 'damaging' to the internet. In a post on X, he also talked about his experience working at OpenAI.

"When I tried to understand the issue better, I eventually came to the conclusion that fair use seems like a pretty implausible defense 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 (sic),” he wrote.

I recently participated in a NYT story about fair use and generative AI, and why I'm skeptical "fair use" would be a plausible defense for a lot of generative AI products. I also wrote a blog post (https://t.co/xhiVyCk2Vk) about the nitty-gritty details of fair use and why I…

— Suchir Balaji (@suchirbalaji) October 23, 2024

Balaji added, "I don't want this to read as a critique of ChatGPT or OpenAI per se, because fair use and generative AI is a much broader issue than any one product or company. I highly encourage ML researchers to learn more about copyright -- it's a really important topic."

He added in another post, "The NYT didn't reach out to me for this article; I reached out to them because I thought I had an interesting perspective, as someone who's been working on these systems since before the current generative AI bubble. None of this is related to their lawsuit with OpenAI."

In a separate blog post, Balaji explained various factors that determine whether generative AI qualifies for fair use. These include the following:

1. "The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. The nature of the copyrighted work;
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."

Balaji stated, "None of the factors seem to weigh in favor of ChatGPT being a fair use of its training data. That being said, none of the arguments here are fundamentally specific to ChatGPT either, and similar arguments could be made for many generative AI products in a wide variety of domains.”