Indian-Origin Former OpenAI Employee Dies By Suicide In San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO: Suchir Balaji, a 26-year-old former employee of OpenAI, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26, according to authorities. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said his death was a suicide and there was no indication of foul play.

Balaji was well-known for his charges against OpenAI after earlier making headlines by exposing the company's dubious activities. He asserted that OpenAI violated US copyright laws when creating ChatGPT, a groundbreaking AI application. His claim formed part of a slew of lawsuits filed against the firm by authors, programmers, and journalists who accused OpenAI of using copyrighted material without consent to train the AI model. These lawsuits helped OpenAI attain a valuation of over $150 billion.

In a candid interview with The New York Times, in October, Balaji expressed his concern regarding the potential harm that AI technologies like ChatGPT could cause to businesses and creators. He also cited that he had left OpenAI because he felt the practices being followed by the company would eventually prove unsustainable and even destructive for the internet ecosystem.

Balaji, who studied computer science at UC Berkeley after growing up in Cupertino, had been outspoken about the moral dilemmas raised by generative AI.

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