Tech Mogul and X (formerly Twitter) CEO Elon Musk commented on the mysterious death of 26-year-old former OpenAI researcher turned whistleblower Suchir Balaji, saying unlike police reports, his death “doesn’t seem like a suicide”.
Suchir Balaji, an Indian-American former Open AI researcher, was found dead at his San Francisco based apartment on November 26. His identity was revealed to media 15 days later, even as authorities ruled his death as suicide with no evidence of foul play.
However, Balaji’s family has now raised objections over the initial police report, claiming they carried a second autopsy on the body that couldn’t confirm suicide as the cause of death. Balaji’s mother Poornima Rao took to X to question the police report on Balaji, where Musk also responded to the same.
Prior to his death, in an interview with The New York Times, Balaji had accused his former employer, Open AI, an artificial intelligence research company and creators of ChatGPT, of violating the copyright laws, while training their AI models on original content. According to Balaji, there is a concern of AI models replicating the exact product, which was used to train them by Open AI under their “fair use” policy.
Following the death of Balaji under mysterious circumstances, many on social media have demanded investigation into the possibility of him being attacked over his whistleblowing activities. Balaji’s family has also claimed that blood stains and “signs of struggle” were allegedly found in his apartment in San Francisco.
It is pertinent to note that Elon Musk was one of the co-founders of OpenAI and currently, he is engaged in a legal battle with the organization’s management over it turning into a “for profit” body.
