Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer who became a whistleblower after raising concerns about the company’s practices violating copyright law, has died at the age of 26. Balaji worked at OpenAI for nearly four years before quitting in August.
He was well-regarded by his colleagues and contributed to several projects, including WebGPT, which helped pave the way for ChatGPT. However, he grew increasingly disillusioned with the company’s practices, particularly its use of data from online writings and other media without permission.
Balaji’s concerns led him to speak out publicly, raising questions about the ethics of using human-generated content in AI training data. He told The New York Times that “it doesn’t feel right to be training on people’s data and then competing with them in the marketplace.”
The company’s board of directors had previously faced criticism for its handling of copyright infringement issues, including a lawsuit filed by The New York Times. Balaji was one of the individuals mentioned as potentially having relevant documents supporting the allegations.
Balaji’s death has been confirmed as suicide by San Francisco officials. His parents and colleagues are still seeking answers and describing him as a “happy, smart, and brave young man” who loved to hike and recently returned from a trip with friends.
A memorial is planned for later this month at the India Community Center in Milpitas, California.
Source: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/openai-whistleblower-who-raised-legal-concerns-about-chatgpts-datasets-has-died