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The mother of Suchir Balaji, a former employee at ChatGPT-parent OpenAI who accused the company of violating copyright laws in October and was found dead a month later, has demanded an FBI investigation into his death.
The 26-year-old OpenAI whistleblower and researcher was found dead in his San Francisco apartment in California on November 26. Officials had ruled Mr Balaji's death a suicide.
In a post on X on Sunday, his mother, Poornima Ramarao, said they hired a private investigator and did a second autopsy to throw light on the cause of death.
The private autopsy "doesn't confirm" the cause of death stated by police, she said.
Ms Ramarao also alleged that Mr Balaji's apartment - which was reportedly on the Buchanan Street - was "ransacked".
"There was a sign of struggle in the bathroom and it looks like someone hit him in the bathroom based on blood spots," she said.
"It's a cold-blooded murder declared by authorities as suicide. Lobbying in SF city doesn't stop us from getting justice," Ms Ramarao said while demanding an FBI probe.
Update on @suchirbalaji
We hired private investigator and did second autopsy to throw light on cause of death. Private autopsy doesn't confirm cause of death stated by police.
Suchir's apartment was ransacked , sign of struggle in the bathroom and looks like some one hit him…
— Poornima Rao (@RaoPoornima) December 29, 2024
In her post, she tagged billionaire Elon Musk and Indian-American tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who are set to be part of the incoming Donald Trump administration.
Mr Musk, who has a long-standing feud with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, responded to her post, saying "This doesn't seem like a suicide".
This doesn't seem like a suicide
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 29, 2024
According to media reports, Mr Balaji's father, Balaji Ramamurthy, while speaking at a vigil held for his son in Milpitas, California, said he was the last person to talk to him on November 22. During the 15-minute call, he said they talked about his Los Angeles trip which was part of his birthday celebration.
"He was in LA and having a good time. So he sent us all the pictures," Guardian quoted Mr Ramamurthy as saying. "He was in a good mood."
What Suchir Balaji Said About OpenAI
Suchir Balaji had alleged that OpenAI's AI models were trained on copyrighted material scraped from the internet without authorisation, a practice he argued was harmful.
"If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company," Mr Balaji told the New York Times in an interview this year.
The Indian-origin techie quit the company in October 2023 after spending nearly four years in the company. At OpenAI, he contributed to data collection for the company's flagship product, ChatGPT.
Mr Balaji explained his concerns further on his personal website, claiming that the company's process of copying data for model training amounted to potential copyright infringement.
He noted that while generative models rarely produce outputs identical to their training data, the act of replicating copyrighted material during training could violate laws if not protected under "fair use."
"This is not a sustainable model for the internet ecosystem as a whole," he told the New York Times in October.
OpenAI, however, disputed his claims, insisting that their data use adhered to fair use principles and legal precedents.
"We build our AI models using publicly available data, in a manner protected by fair use and related principles, and supported by longstanding and widely accepted legal precedents. We view this principle as fair to creators, necessary for innovators, and critical for US competitiveness," the company said in a statement.
After its release in 2022, he began questioning the legal and ethical implications of OpenAI's practices. By mid-2023, he concluded that such AI technologies were damaging to the internet and society, prompting his resignation.