The medical examiner’s office ruled the death a suicide, with police stating that currently there is no evidence of foul play. Balaji had gained attention for whistleblowing against OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence company now embroiled in multiple lawsuits challenging its business practices.
Balaji’s death comes three months after he publicly accused OpenAI of violating US copyright law in the development of ChatGPT, according to The Mercury News.
The program’s public release in late 2022 sparked a wave of lawsuits against OpenAI from authors, programmers, and journalists, who alleged that the company illegally used their copyrighted material to train its AI and boost its valuation to over $150 billion.
In an interview with The New York Times on October 23, Balaji claimed that OpenAI’s practices were harming businesses and entrepreneurs whose data had been exploited to train ChatGPT.
Balaji, who grew up in Cupertino and studied computer science at UC Berkeley, left OpenAI, citing ethical concerns about the technology’s societal impact. “If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company,” he said, arguing that OpenAI’s approach was not a sustainable model for the internet ecosystem as a whole.
Balaji’s mother has requested privacy as she grieves the loss of her son, The Mercury News reported.
