Suchir Balaji (November 21, 1998 – November, 2024) was an American artificial intelligence (AI) researcher and whistleblower who accused his former employer, OpenAI, of violating United States copyright law. His death has drawn international attention.

The San Francisco Police Department has found "no evidence of foul play" during its investigation. The San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined the death was a suicide.

Balaji's parents, friends, and some prominent Americans suspect foul play and have called for a federal investigation.

The San Francisco police investigation remains open and active as of January 23, 2025.^[3]

Balaji was born on November 21, 1998^[4] into an Indian-American family and raised in Cupertino, California.^[5] He started coding with Scratch at the age of 11 and built his own computer by 13. He wrote a scientific paper about chip design at 14 years old. At 17 years old, the online knowledge-sharing forum Quora recruited him to work for them.^[1][2] He attended Monta Vista High School and was a finalist for the 2015–16 season of the United States of America Computing Olympiad.^[6][7] After working with Quora, Suchir won $100,000 in a TSA sponsored competition for improving passenger screening algorithms.^[7][8]

In 2021, he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts degree in computer science. He placed 31st in the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest 2018 World Finals and won first place in both the 2017 Pacific Northwest Regional and Berkeley Programming Contests.^[9][10]

Suchir Balaji spent four years as an artificial intelligence researcher at OpenAI. Among other projects, he was involved in gathering and organizing the internet data used to train GPT-4, a language model used by the company's online chatbot, ChatGPT. He also worked on a precursor model called WebGPT.^[11][12] He left the company in August 2024 after becoming disillusioned with its business practices.^[11] After leaving OpenAI, Balaji said he had been working on "personal projects."^[5] He planned to create a nonprofit centered on machine learning and neurosciences, according to his mother.^[13]

In an October 23, 2024 New York Times profile, Balaji alleged that products like ChatGPT violate United States copyright law because they are trained on the products of business competitors, and because the chatbots' outputs can then imitate and substitute those products. He said that ChatGPT and similar chatbots are ruining the commercial viability of the individuals and organizations who produced the data that the AI systems are trained on. He was quoted as saying "If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company."^[11][14]

The New York Times piece contains a summary of Balaji's essay "When does generative AI qualify for fair use?", published on his personal website earlier that week. In the essay, he mathematically analyzes outputs of large language models such as ChatGPT, and argues that they fail the four-factor test for determining fair use under U.S. copyright law. He further suggests that the argument could be applied to other generative artificial intelligence products as well.^[11][15]

At the time, OpenAI was being sued for copyright infringement by prominent authors and news publishers, including the New York Times. In a November 18, 2024 court filing, Balaji was identified by the New York Times's attorneys as one of a number of people who might have "relevant documents" in the copyright case against OpenAI. Balaji had said that he would testify against the AI company.^[5][12]

OpenAI argued that its software was "grounded in fair use and related international copyright principles that are fair for creators and support innovation," and was "trained on publicly available data."^[5]

Balaji's parents say they last heard from their son on November 22, 2024. After he stopped responding to text messages, they asked San Francisco police to enter his home to conduct a well-being check.^[3] On November 26, 2024, the police found Balaji dead in his apartment. He was 26 years old.^[5]

The police said that "no evidence of foul play" was found during the initial investigation.^[5] In mid-December, 2024, the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) determined the death was a suicide,^[5][4] in what has been described in the media as a "preliminary determination."^[16][4] The police reaffirmed on January 15, 2025 that no evidence of foul play has been found in their investigation.^[4] On January 20, 2025, The Mercury News wrote that San Francisco police have reiterated multiple times that the death was a suicide.^[17] The police have said the investigation is "open and active," and have therefore declined to release further information.^[3]

As of January 20, 2025, no official documentation of an OCME autopsy has been released. The office has said it would release the documents once toxicology tests are complete.^[17] According to its official web page, the office aims to release postmortem forensic reports within 90 days of a subject's death.^[3][18] Therefore, the report is expected to be released by February 24, 2025, if the timeline is followed.

Balaji's death has prompted public and media interest, particularly given his whistleblowing claims and status as a custodian witness in a lawsuit against OpenAI.^[19][7]

A spokesperson for his former employer, OpenAI, said he was "devastated" by the news of Balaji's death.^[5]

Balaji's parents and friends believe the circumstances of his death are unclear. His family and close friends report that he had no history of mental health issues or distress, and was in generally good spirits after his birthday that week.^[20] The parents say they hired an independent investigator to determine the cause of death. They had pathologist Dr. Joseph Cohen perform a second autopsy, which Balaji's mother said "doesn't confirm the cause of death stated by police."^[21][3]

Balaji's parents believe their son was murdered by a firearm,^[17][22] and have called for an FBI investigation. Balaji's parents claim to have evidence from their independent investigation, such as ballistic evidence from the private autopsy, which they claim shows a downwards bullet travel path that would be impossible by a self-administered gunshot. Balaji's parents also claim that a tuft of wig hair found at the scene that did not belong to Suchir represents unexplained evidence.^[23] Balaji's family has not released a copy of the autopsy report as of January 16, 2025.^[4] The pathologist who performed the autopsy declined to comment on it to The Mercury News.^[17]

Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, California Congressman Ro Khanna, and San Francisco Supervisor Jackie Fielder have publicly echoed Balaji's parents' skepticism and calls for an investigation.^[17][16][3] Balaji's mother discussed her son's death on Carlson's podcast, The Tucker Carlson Show, on January 15, 2025.^[24] Doubts about the cause of death spread on social media even before Balaji's parents had made their public statements. California State University, East Bay lecturer Nolan Higdon described the public discourse as "a baseless conspiracy theory," and mentioned social media monetization schemes and advertising revenue as a financial incentive for social media influencers and podcasters to propagate it.^[17]

• List of whistleblowers
• Ethics of artificial intelligence
• Artificial intelligence and copyright