'Out Of Respect...': OpenAI On Suchir Balaji's Death After His Mother Alleges 'Murder'

Last Updated:January 18, 2025, 11:44 IST

Suchir Balaji's Death: OpenAI said in a statement, "Suchir was a valued member of our team and we are still heartbroken by his passing."

Suchir Balaji worked on OpenAI's several key projects, including WebGPT and GPT-4's pretraining.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI said that whistleblower Suchir Balaji, who was found dead after accusing the company of violating copyright laws, was a “valued member" of their company. The remarks by the Sam Altman-led firm come days after Suchir Balaji’s mother blamed OpenAI for her son’s death.

In an interview, Poornima Rao said, “My son had documents against OpenAI. They attacked him and killed him. Everybody is suppressed, nobody is ready to come up and tell the truth. Even the attorneys have been made to tell that it is a suicide."

What OpenAI said On Suchir Balaji

OpenAI said in a statement, “Suchir was a valued member of our team and we are still heartbroken by his passing. We continue to feel his loss deeply. We have reached out to the San Francisco Police Department and have offered our assistance if it’s needed. Law enforcement are the right authorities in this situation, and we trust them to continue sharing updates as needed."

The company said that “out of respect" they will not be commenting further on the case.

Suchir Balaji died in November after he had publicly raised ethical concerns about OpenAI’s practices. The police deemed his death as an act of suicide but his family has called for an FBI investigation as they said that there were several lapses in the police probe.

San Francisco, California, USA

News world 'Out Of Respect...': OpenAI On Suchir Balaji's Death After His Mother Alleges 'Murder'