The San Francisco Police have confirmed that the OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji's death was a suicide. The autopsy report established initial findings of the authorities which contended that there is no evidence of homicide, according to a report by Fortune.
Balaji, a 26-year-old Indian-American and former OpenAI researcher was found dead in his San Francisco home on November 26, 2024. His death raised suspicions, with his parents repeatedly claiming he had been murdered.
On Friday, the San Francisco Police and medical examiners announced that the investigation into Balaji’s death was officially closed, according to a 13-page report from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) and a four-page response to the lawsuit. They confirmed their original conclusion that he died by suicide.
"The OCME found no evidence or information to establish a cause and manner of death for Mr Balaji other than a suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head," read the medical examiner's report.
"SFPD conducted an independent investigation and based on the information SFPD reviewed, there is insufficient evidence to find Mr. Balaji's death was the result of a homicide."
However, Balaji's parents have disputed the findings. They claim the autopsy was flawed and point out that the police did not obtain CCTV footage from the building where he lived while pointing out that no suicide note was found.
Poornima Rao, Balaji's mother, criticised the SFPD for what she called inaccuracies in the autopsy and police reports.
"They have never retrieved CCTV footage from the leasing office. We need a report from the police. We are only requesting a transparent investigation," she wrote on X.
In an interview with American commentator Tucker Carlson, Balaji’s mother accused OpenAI of having a hand in her son's death, alleging they covered it up as a suicide. She argued that her son had been killed because he exposed the company's practices, and some of the documents which he had against them were missing after his death.
In the interview, Rao also accused OpenAI of failing to recognise and acknowledge her son's contribution to their flagship product, ChatGPT and he had received no recognition for his work.
In an earlier post on X, Rao mentioned that Balaji's apartment had been "ransacked" and bloodstains had been found. "Someone hit him in the bathroom. There were blood spots. It was cold-blooded murder declared by authorities as suicide," she claimed.
Balaji’s parents also appeared in a video with investigative journalist George Webb, detailing what they saw in their son’s apartment, including a pool of blood and evidence of a struggle.
According to his mother, dissatisfaction with OpenAI’s policies and for-profit model led Balaji to become a whistleblower.
Balaji had left OpenAI after discovering that the company was using copyrighted material from the internet to train its chatbot. He died just one day after being named in a legal filing, where OpenAI intended to review his files as part of a lawsuit filed by individuals challenging the company's practices. Several notable authors, including best-selling writer John Grisham, are part of the lawsuit.
In response to the allegations, OpenAI issued a statement expressing sadness over Balaji’s passing.
"Suchir was a valued member of our team and we are still heartbroken by his passing. We continue to feel his loss deeply. We have reached out to the San Francisco Police Department and have offered our assistance if it's needed. Law enforcement are the right authorities in this situation, and we trust them to continue sharing updates as needed," OpenAI said in a statement.
The statement also said that they would not comment further on the issue "out of respect" for him.
Elon Musk shared Rao's interview with Tucker Carlson on X, captioning it 'Extremely concerning'.
Balaji, was a significant figure voicing ethical concerns regarding the use of copyrighted materials to train generative AI models like ChatGPT.
“I recently participated in a New York Times story about fair use and generative AI, and why I’m sceptical ‘fair use’ would be a plausible defence for a lot of generative AI products. I also wrote a blog post about the nitty-gritty details of fair use and why I believe this,” Balaji had written on X.
In a separate interview with the New York Times, Balaji had described OpenAI’s method of data collection as "harmful."
“If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company,” he said, expressing concern over the training of GPT-4 on massive amounts of internet data.
Balaji was particularly concerned about generative AI systems creating outputs that directly competed with the original copyrighted works used in their training. In a blog post cited by the Chicago Tribune, he stated, “No known factors seem to weigh in favour of ChatGPT being a fair use of its training data.”
He also emphasized that this issue was not limited to OpenAI alone, adding, “Fair use and generative AI is a much broader issue than any one product or company.”
The death of Balaji has reignited debates surrounding the ethical and legal ramifications of AI technologies.
(If you are having suicidal thoughts, or are worried about a friend or need emotional support, someone is always there to listen. Call Sneha Foundation - 04424640050 (available 24x7) or iCall, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences' helpline - 02225521111, which is available Monday to Saturday from 8 am to 10 pm.)