 "Balaji came into the spotlight after he raised worries over generative AI and its purported abuse of protected content, warning about the ethical complications in the industry he helped build. Image courtesy: LinkedIn/Suchir Balaji")
The family of the OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji are urging the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to probe his mysterious death. The 26-year-old whistleblower was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26. According to The Guardian, Balaji’s parents are questioning the circumstances of their son’s death and refuse to believe that he died by suicide.
They are demanding the FBI investigate his death as they believe that the San Francisco police department lacks the ability to conduct a thorough investigation into a case that includes issues such as cybersecurity and whistleblower protection. “I am not grieving,” Poornima Ramarao, Balaji’s mother remarked. “I have become numb.”
Police found Balaji dead in the apartment after Ramarao failed to get in touch with her son for over three days. She eventually filed a missing complaint where she lives in Union City, about 40 miles from San Francisco. The local police then contacted San Franciso authorities, following which the search operation commenced.
“Officers and medics arrived on scene and located a deceased adult male from what appeared to be a suicide,” police said at that time. “No evidence of foul play was found during the initial investigation," they added.
Balaji’s parents cast doubts
Ramarao mentioned that it took the medical examiner 40 seconds from the time they arrived at the scene to declare it a suicide. “The reason they said is he went inside and did not come out, nobody was with him … and he shot himself,” Ramarao said. “There was a gun near him," he added.
The parents of the OpenAI whistleblower made it clear that Balaji had no history of mental illness and no suicide note was found. Meanwhile, Balaji Ramamurthy, who was the last person to talk to his son on 22 November, said they talked about his Los Angeles trip which was part of his birthday celebration.
“He was in LA and having a good time. So he sent us all the pictures,” Ramamurthy said of his 15-minute call after Balaji’s return. “He was in a good mood.” However, the San Francisco police made it clear that the investigation is still open and active.
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More ShortsHow Balaji became a whistleblower
Balaji studied computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He started working for OpenAI in November 2020 and worked on a project called WebGPT, which John Schulman, one of the OpenAI co-founders, said helped pave the way for ChatGPT. “I was heartbroken to hear of Suchir’s passing. I worked with Suchir on and off since around 2021, and he was one of my favourite and most talented collaborators,” Schulman said after hearing the news.
Balaji eventually quit OpenAI in August this year, the same day as Schulman, and publicly spoke of copyright violations by generative AI developers including OpenAI. While speaking on the matter to The New York Times in October, Balaji said that the AI giant had violated copyright law and products like ChatGPT were damaging the internet. “If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company," he told the American news outlet.
Last month, OpenAI issued a statement stating that it was “devastated” to learn of Balaji’s death and had been in touch with his parents “to offer our full support during this difficult time”. Ramarao insisted that her son had been an upstanding human being who never said anything negative about teachers, school or colleagues. “I don’t know how I could have saved my son by teaching him to tell lies,” Ramarao said. “The ethics with which I raised him took his life today.”
With inputs from agencies.