Suchir Balaji, former researcher at OpenAI, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26, at just 26 years old. He considered that the company had used illegal practices to train its models, training them on copyrighted content.
Four years at OpenAI
On the afternoon of November 26, police in the Californian city were called to an apartment to carry out a “ wellness check “. They found a deceased adult male, and discovered “ no evidence of foul play » during their initial investigation, they said. “ It was determined that the death was due to suicide. “, for his part declared David Serrano Sewell, executive director of the office of the chief medical examiner of San Francisco.
« We are devastated by this incredibly sad news and our hearts go out to Suchir's loved ones at this difficult time. », Reacted an OpenAI spokesperson in a press release sent to Business Insider.
Because Suchir Balaji spent four years at the company that created ChatGPTbefore leaving his position in August 2024. He notably collected information for the development of GPT-4, one of the company's most powerful language models. An experience which he used to vehemently criticize the practices used to train generative artificial intelligence (AI).
Whistleblower
In an interview given to New York Times in October, he directly attacked OpenAI, believing that AI would bring more harm than good to society. According to him, the way the models are trained directly violates copyright laws. “ Generative models are designed to mimic online data so they can replace “virtually everything” on the internet, from news articles to online forums ».
He believed that the massive exploitation of freely collected data on the Internet could compromise the sustainability of knowledge-producing online communities. So much so that conversational agents like ChatGPT would present a real risk of weakening the economic model of original content creators.
« If you believe what I believe, you should just leave the business “, he said during his interview with the American media.
OpenAI vs le New York Times
As a reminder, OpenAI is currently being sued by the New York Timeswho accuses him of having illegally used his articles to train his models.
« We build our AI models using publicly available data, in a manner protected by fair use and related principles, and supported by long-standing and widely accepted legal precedent. We believe this principle is fair to creators, necessary to innovators, and essential to U.S. competitiveness. “, explained the startup at the time.
- Suchir Balaji, former researcher at OpenAI, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26.
- He spent four years at OpenAI, where he notably collected information for the development of GPT-4.
- He considered that conversational agents like ChatGPT presented a real risk of weakening the economic model of original content creators.
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