Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI researcher who ultimately became a whistleblower speaking out against the company, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment Nov. 26. His death has been ruled a suicide. Three months ago, Balaji, 26, accused OpenAI of violating US copyright law, reports the Mercury News, one of several newspapers that have sued the company for allegedly using their copyrighted material to train its artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT. Little more than a month before his death, Balaji gave an interview to the New York Times—another newspaper that has sued OpenAI—in which he accused his former employer of failure to comply with the country's "fair use" laws regarding use of previously published material.
He said AI systems like ChatGPT make copies of existing data, then generate something else: "The outputs aren't exact copies of the inputs, but they are also not fundamentally novel," he told the Times. He claimed the AI output was competing with the original, essentially robbing the creators of the original data. (OpenAI denies his claims.) He was expected to play a role in the lawsuits filed against his former employer, some of which he had been named in. The Times, for example, said in court documents that Balaji had information that would support its case against OpenAI. Police say there was no sign of foul play in his death. A spokesperson for OpenAI says the company is "devastated" by the news, CNBC reports. (If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, call or text 988.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
