Suchir Balaji, a 26-year-old who worked at OpenAI for four years, was found dead on November 26 in his San Francisco apartment, according to Business Insider.
Police reported no signs of foul play. The city’s chief medical examiner stated that the cause of death was suicide.
Balaji had previously criticized OpenAI for its methods of sourcing data from the internet to train AI models. At the company, he was involved in preparing information for the development of GPT-4.
In October, the researcher published an essay criticizing the use of copyrighted data in AI training, questioning its compliance with the “concept of fair use.”
In the essay, Balaji noted that the process of training models involves copying copyrighted information; if such copies are made without permission, it may violate the law. He also highlighted the damage these actions cause to online communities, including a decline in traffic to specialized resources like Stack Overflow, where users no longer post unique content due to competition with AI.
The Impact of AI on the Internet Ecosystem
Balaji pointed out that chatbots like ChatGPT strip human-created content of its commercial value, destabilizing the internet’s operational model. He discussed this issue with The New York Times, which last year filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the company and Microsoft of illegally using its content to train AI.
The company, led by Sam Altman, denies the allegations, asserting that model training is based on publicly available data within the framework of fair use laws. The firm stated that it considers this practice fair to content creators and essential for innovation and U.S. competitiveness.
Previously, OpenAI appealed to the court to dismiss part of the New York Times’ copyright lawsuit, claiming the newspaper “hacked” ChatGPT to fabricate evidence.