The mother of Suchir Balaji, OpenAI whistleblower who allegedly died by suicide in November, believes her son’s death did not look like a “normal situation”.
Suchir was a former employee at OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT. In October, he made headlines by accusing the company of violating copyright laws. A month later, he was found dead in his US apartment.
His parents refused to accept the official version of suicide and sought a private autopsy, but its results were not made public. The family has now hired a lawyer to seek a thorough investigation into his death.
“We want to leave the question open. It doesn’t look like a normal situation,” his mother Poornima Ramarao has told Business Insider in an interview.
Also read: Suchir Balaji, OpenAI whistleblower, found dead in San Francisco
Suchir’s concerns
Poornima told the media house that Suchir believed OpenAI was moving away from its open-source, nonprofit roots towards a financially-driven agenda. OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT, powered by the data he had helped gather for GPT-4, intensified his concerns.
Poornima told Business Insider that Suchir felt AI was “a harm to humanity”. His ideals were so strong that he resigned from OpenAI in August even though he had made early achievements in the company.
Soon, he realised that OpenAI’s practices, especially its use of internet-sourced data to train AI models, could be infringing on copyright laws, and voiced his concerns in an October interview with The New York Times.
Family’s fears
Poornima said she was livid after the interview, fearing for his safety. “I literally blasted him. ‘You should not go alone. Why did you give your picture? Why did you give your name? Why don’t you stay anonymous? What’s the need for you to give your picture?’,” she had told him, she recalled in the interview.
While Suchir had reassured her that he was connecting with other like-minded individuals, Poornima believed he was too naive to comprehend corporate games.
Also watch: Mystery shrouds death of Indian-American Suchir Balaji, OpenAI whistleblower
Suchir celebrated his 26th birthday on November 21 and spoke with his parents the following day. “He was upbeat and happy. What can go wrong within a few hours that his life is lost?” Poornima remarked in the interview.
She recalled how smart her son had been from an early age. He could form complex sentences at just two and began learning to code by 11. By 14, he had written a scientific paper on chip design, and was recruited by the online knowledge-sharing platform Quora at 17. Even “as a little five-year-old, he never made mistakes. He was perfect”, Poornima sighed.
(Suicides can be prevented. For help please call Suicide Prevention Helplines: Neha Suicide Prevention Centre – 044-24640050; Aasara helpline for suicide prevention, emotional support & trauma help — +91-9820466726; Kiran, Mental health rehabilitation — 1800-599-0019, Disha 0471- 2552056, Maithri 0484 2540530, and Sneha’s suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050.)
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