Suchir Balaji's Death 'Open & Active Investigation': San Francisco Police's Big Shift

New Delhi: The mystery surrounding the death of Suchir Balaji took a new turn as the San Francisco Police Department and the Coroner’s Office quietly updated the status of his case. Initially labelled as a "Closed - Suicide" investigation, the case has now been reclassified as an "Open and Active Investigation," raising questions about the circumstances surrounding his untimely demise. The San Francisco Police Department, however, is yet to release any further details about the new developments. 

The unexpected shift follows growing scrutiny and questions about the initial ruling of the alleged suicide. Balaji’s death, once classified as self-inflicted, will now undergo a renewed investigation. Officials have indicated that new evidence or potential leads may have emerged, prompting them to reconsider the circumstances surrounding Suchir's death.

Balaji, a former OpenAI researcher, was found dead in a San Francisco apartment. His family disputed the suicide ruling, pointing to inconsistencies and suggesting a possible cover-up. The case has attracted the attention of notable figures such as Elon Musk and has raised concerns regarding Balaji's whistleblowing actions.  

Suchir's mother, Poornima Rao, recently expressed her gratitude to Musk and his social media platform X, saying, "@elonmusk thank you for your attention to this."

In a video post, Poornima added, "@elonmusk thank you for your attention to this. Thank you for the X platform where we can express facts and concerns openly without fear of being killed."

'Extremely Brave, Cannot Take His Life', Suchir Balaji's Mother to Republic

Last month, in an exclusive interview with Republic Media Network's Editor-in-Chief, Arnab Goswami , Suchir Balaji's mother revealed startling details about her son's death, suggesting the possibility of foul play.  Speaking to Arnab, the parents of the OpenAI whistleblower asserted that Suchir was 'extremely brave and could not have taken his own life'.

When Arnab talked about Suchir's holiday where he is seen as perfectly fine and asked if there is nothing which can indicate he would take his own life, Suchir's mother said, "Nothing. He was actually, he had a blast of his life. It's a tragedy that November 21st was his birthday. He celebrated his birthday dinner with friends, and cut his cake on the 21st evening. 27th he headed back to LA. When Suchir got out of Uber in front of his apartment complex, leasing office manager Corey saw him and spoke to Suchir. He was happy. And we also spoke to his friends who accompanied him to the trip to LA and Catalina Island. We have the pictures. And they also confirmed he was upbeat and happy. He had a blast. You know, he became a whistleblower against the most powerful AI company in the entire world.  

'He Had Planned to Legal Action Against OpenAI'

When Arnab raised concerns about the possibility of Suchir going public with more information or data, Suchir's mother responded, "He's already gone. The New York Times reported, he said he had a document to prove that there was a copyright violation. He had planned and lined up interviews with many other press, for example, the Associated Press on December 2nd. On December 3rd, the Associated Press called on his mobile phone and we took the phone. We knew that he was planning to take a legal action against OpenAI. We are yet to discover what that legal action is and what his concerns were."

She asserted, "We need to get hold of his devices and explore further, do more forensic analysis to get to know what his concerns were. But my personal thinking is there might have been a threat in some form or the other. If we dig deeper, we will get it."

Who was Suchir Balaji?

Suchir Balaji, a 26-year-old Indian-American tech researcher who publicly criticized the use of copyrighted data in artificial intelligence (AI), was found dead in his San Francisco apartment.

Balaji, who joined OpenAI in 2019, worked on several major projects during his four years with the company, including training GPT-4 and enhancing ChatGPT’s performance. He left OpenAI in August 2023, citing concerns about the potential harm the company could cause. His role at OpenAI also included contributing to data collection for the company’s flagship product, ChatGPT.

On his website, Balaji outlined his concerns, claiming that OpenAI's approach to copying data for training its models could be considered copyright infringement. He raised ethical risks surrounding generative AI and copyright violations, sparking a wider debate within the tech industry and beyond.

Just a day before his death, Balaji’s name was mentioned in a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI. While his involvement in the case remains unclear, his vocal criticism of the company’s data practices likely drew attention to his stance on ethical AI development. Balaji had accused OpenAI of using copyrighted material scraped from the internet to train its AI models without proper authorization, a practice he argued was harmful. "If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company," Balaji said in an interview with The New York Times earlier this year. He resigned from OpenAI in October 2023 after nearly four years with the company.

Balaji was outspoken about OpenAI’s alleged misuse of copyrighted materials to train generative AI models. In October, he posted on X (formerly Twitter), “Fair use seems like a pretty implausible defence for a lot of generative AI products, for the basic reason that they can create substitutes that compete with the data they’re trained on.” He also criticized the company’s use of ‘fair use’ as a defence, writing in a blog post cited by the Chicago Tribune that the training of AI systems like ChatGPT raised serious legal and ethical issues. “No known factors seem to weigh in favour of ChatGPT being a fair use of its training data,” he wrote.