New Delhi:
The parents of Suchir Balaji, a former employee ChatGPT maker OpenAI, have alleged that his autopsy had shown signs of struggle such as a head injury. Twenty-six-year-old Balaji, who had flagged ethical concerns about OpenAI’s functioning after he left the Artificial Intelligence giant, was found dead at his San Francisco flat earlier this month. Authorities have said he had died by suicide.
Balaji’s parents Balaji Ramamurthy and Purnima Rao spoke to NDTV about their son’s tragic death and their fight for justice.
“We read the second autopsy, there are signs of struggle such as head injury, more details from the autopsy reveal it is murder,” his mother said.
Recounting his last conversation with his son, Mr Ramamurthy said, “He was returning from a birthday trip from Los Angeles where he went with his friends, he was happy. He told me he wanted to go to Las Vegas for CES (a tech show) in January. At the end, he said he was going for dinner,” he said.
Born and raised in California, Suchir Balaji worked with OpenAI for nearly four years as a researcher. He quit in August, protesting against the AI giant’s business practices. Suchir alleged that OpenAI had violated US copyright law and voiced his concern in a report in The New York Times, titled ‘Former OpenAI Researcher Says the Company Broke Copyright Law’.
Ms Rao said Suchir was among the top 10 in the artificial intelligence industry. “Why would he quit OpenAI and leave the AI industry, he was planning to start something in neuroscience and machine learning. Our suspicion is was he threatened by OpenAI, did they suppress him? he didn’t pick up another job, maybe they threatened him,” she said.
Suchir, his mother said, had consulted a copyright attorney and figured out he was not doing anything wrong and they were just suppressing him. That’s what made him go for The New York Times interview,” she said.
She said Suchir had told her he was working on some research and would publish it when ready. “In his publication, he explains with mathematical basis that the modulated answer is not exactly as per the information fed to ChatGPT.”
Ms Rao said Suchir had told her that the “work of artistes and journalists are stolen (by ChatGPT) and that’s very unethical”. “I concurred with him. He was not fighting against OpenAI, he was standing for humanity, he says in his article that he thought AI would be good for humanity but it is more harm.”
Suchir’s mother said she had advised him to build up support for his cause and he was working on that. The 26-year-old’s parents say they believe the information Suchir had might have led to a turning point for the AI industry. “We believe so, we know now it is a powerplay, we have the autopsy report and he didn’t take his life. Who and why is something we need to explore,” Ms Ramarao said.
Earlier, X boss Elon Musk and OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk voiced support for Suchir Balaji’s parents. In an X post in which Ms Rao said her son’s murder was being passed off as suicide, Musk replied, “This doesn’t seem like suicide.” Ms Ramarao said it was a great support for them, but clarified that they had not reached out to him yet.
Demanding an FBI investigation into her son’s death, Suchir’s mother said, “They must get to the bottom of this and give justice to my son, a precious life has been lost, it’s a loss to tech industry, he was incredibly smart. At OpenAI, his former boss says he tweaked the algorithm and found an easy way of doing things and that made a big impact on ChatGPT. OpenAI keeps saying we are supporting the parents, we wonder how.”
Suchir’s parents said they had also reached out to the Indian authorities in the US and had been assured support. “We expect the Indian government to support us and raise his voice for us.”
