Former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower Suchir Balaji dies at 26 in San Francisco

Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower, has died at age 26. He was found in his San Francisco apartment on November 26, with police stating the death appeared to be a suicide. His family is seeking answers. Balaji worked at OpenAI for nearly four years, contributing to projects like WebGPT and GPT-4. He raised concerns about copyright violations related to AI training practices, which he believed were illegal. He had expressed intentions to testify in ongoing legal cases against OpenAI. His death comes amid ongoing lawsuits against AI companies for copyright infringement. Balaji's insights into these issues were sought in legal proceedings, but it remains unclear how his passing will affect those cases. A memorial is planned for later this month.