North India Statesman
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Death of Suchir Balaji: Questions are being raised continuously over the death of Suchir Balaji, a former employee of OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT. Suchir’s mother Purnima Rama Rao has demanded an investigation into the death by the American investigative agency FBI. X and SpaceX owner Elon Musk has also responded to his demand. He has raised a big question on considering Suchir Balaji’s death as suicide.
Suchir’s mother Purnima Rama Rao said that authorities have declared the cause of death to be suicide, but it was a brutal murder. He posted on social media platform X demanding an FBI investigation into the incident and wrote, ‘We have hired a private investigator. What is the cause of death? For this he got his body tested for the second time. The private investigator says the cause of death is not what the police have reported.
In the initial investigation, the police have considered suicide as the cause of death. Since then Suchir’s mother has been raising questions on this. He further wrote in his post, ‘Suchir’s apartment was vandalized and there are marks of struggle in the bathroom. Based on the marks of murder, it seems that someone murdered her in the bathroom. We will not back down from demanding justice.
Purnima Rama Rao has also tagged Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in this post. Elon Musk also commented on this post. While sharing the post, he wrote, ‘Suchir Balaji has worked at OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. He was an engineer of Indian-American origin. OpenAI left the company in October 2023 after spending almost 4 years with the company. At OpenAI, Suchir contributed data collection for the company’s featured product, ChatGPT. He lived in the Buchanan Street Apartments in the Lower Haight district.’
The engineer’s body was found on November 26, but the media came to know about it several days later. Police said that in the initial investigation they did not find any evidence of foul play. Police have expressed apprehension that this could be a case of suicide. Suchir Balaji accused OpenAI company of violating copyright laws.
What was said about OpenAI?
When Suchir Balaji gave an interview to an English newspaper, this interview was much talked about. Suchir said, ‘I resigned because I did not want to contribute to technology that would harm rather than benefit society. If you agree with me then you should also leave such a company. The way OpenAI works is dangerous for companies and users who collect data with their consent. OpenAI company is using the data of companies and people by ignoring the rules.
His name was registered in court on November 25, a day before the body was found. My name was filed in a copyright case against OpenAI.
The OpenAI company and its largest investor Microsoft have been accused of violating copyright laws. Many media organizations have filed cases regarding this matter. Suchir took names of many journalists, writers and engineers in this case. He once said. ‘This (ChatGPT) is not a sustainable model for the Internet ecosystem.’
At the same time, Suchir raised questions on the way OpenAI works. Even then Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk had reacted. He expressed ‘hmm’ (vague agreement) on a news related to this. It is noteworthy that Musk has a long-running dispute with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
