A former OpenAI employee who accused the company of legal violations related to ChatGPT has been found dead, reports the Adyrna national portal, citing CNBC News.
The body of Suheer Balaji was discovered several weeks ago in his San Francisco apartment, according to the city’s Chief Medical Examiner, David Serrano Sewell.
The 26-year-old had left OpenAI in 2024 and accused the company of violating U.S. copyright laws. Sewell stated that forensic experts concluded Balaji died by suicide.
An OpenAI representative confirmed Balaji’s death, saying, “We are deeply saddened to hear this tragic news today,” in an interview with the media.
Suheer Balaji had worked as an AI researcher at OpenAI for nearly four years, contributing to data collection and curation efforts for ChatGPT development.
In August, he left the company, and in the fall, he gave an interview to The New York Times, urging his colleagues to follow his example. The publication cited Balaji’s claims that OpenAI violated laws by using copyrighted intellectual property in developing ChatGPT. He argued that such technologies harm society more than they benefit it, disrupting the “commercial viability” of individuals, businesses, and internet services that created the materials used to train chatbots.
Over the past two years, companies specializing in AI development, including OpenAI, have faced numerous lawsuits from programmers, artists, recording companies, book authors, and media outlets.
Among the critics was American entrepreneur Elon Musk. In February 2024, Musk accused OpenAI of breaching agreements and abandoning its original mission of developing AI for the benefit of humanity. However, in June, Musk withdrew his complaint.
