Former OpenAI researcher and whistleblower found dead at age 26

A 26-year-old former OpenAI researcher, Suchir Balaji, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment in recent weeks, CNBC has confirmed.

Balaji left OpenAI earlier this year and raised concerns publicly that the company had allegedly violated U.S. copyright law while developing its popular ChatGPT chatbot.

“The manner of death has been determined to be suicide,” David Serrano Sewell, executive director of San Francisco’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, told CNBC in an email on Friday. He said Balaji’s next of kin have been notified.

The San Francisco Police Department said in an e-mail that on the afternoon of Nov. 26, officers were called to an apartment on Buchanan Street to conduct a “wellbeing check.” They found a deceased adult male, and discovered “no evidence of foul play” in their initial investigation, the department said.

News of Balaji’s death was first reported by the San Jose Mercury News. A family member contacted by the paper requested privacy.

In October, The New York Times published a story about Balaji’s concerns.

“If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company,” Balaji told the paper. He reportedly believed that ChatGPT and other chatbots like it would destroy the commercial viability of people and organizations who created the digital data and content now widely used to train AI systems.

A spokesperson for OpenAI confirmed Balaji’s death.

“We are devastated to learn of this incredibly sad news today and our hearts go out to Suchir’s loved ones during this difficult time,” the spokesperson said in an email.

OpenAI is currently involved in legal disputes with a number of publishers, authors and artists over alleged use of copyrighted material for AI training data. A lawsuit filed by news outlets last December seeks to hold OpenAI and principal backer Microsoft accountable for billions of dollars in damages.

“We actually don’t need to train on their data,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said at an event organized by Bloomberg in Davos earlier this year. “I think this is something that people don’t understand. Any one particular training source, it doesn’t move the needle for us that much.”

If you are having suicidal thoughts, contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for support and assistance from a trained counselor.

— CNBC’s Hayden Field contributed reporting.

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