Who was Suchir Balaji, OpenAI whistleblower whose death has raised eyebrows in US

UPDATED: Dec 31, 2024 00:37 IST

The death of former OpenAI researcher and whistleblower Suchir Balaji has snowballed into a big controversy in US after his mother challenged police's claim of a suicide and called it a "cold-blooded murder". Poornima Ramarao is seeking an FBI investigation into the death of her son, which happened just weeks after he raised red-flag over the practices at OpenAI, which is the creator of ChatGPT. Notably, billionaire Elon Musk has also supported her claim and said that the death does not look like a suicide.

Who was Suchir Balaji?

Balaji was no stranger to success. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, he excelled in programming competitions and secured top spots in major contests like the ACM ICPC World Finals in 2018.

Before joining OpenAI, he worked at companies like Scale AI, Helia and Quora. He was also a key player in the development of ChatGPT, the widely known AI chatbot.

Despite his achievements, Balaji became increasingly disillusioned with OpenAI, particularly its growing focus on commercial interests.

In October 2024, he quit the company and accused OpenAI of violating copyright laws by scraping internet data to train its AI models.

He warned that these practices could hurt the internet ecosystem and create substitutes for original content. “If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company,” he told The New York Times during an interview.

Balaji also raised concerns about generative AI products like ChatGPT, claiming they were damaging to the internet, which seemed to go against the company's original mission.

Mother smells foul play

Poornima Ramarao said that her son was growing increasingly frustrated with OpenAI’s shift toward commercialization.

“He felt AI is a harm to humanity,” she said, adding that Balaji’s optimism about the technology turned into skepticism over time.

She recalled how their conversations became tense as he expressed doubts about the company’s direction.

Cops claim suicide

Balaji's death, just days after celebrating his 26th birthday, shocked his family.

The police ruled it a suicide, but Ramarao has strongly opposed this claim.

She and her husband have since hired a private investigator and conducted a second autopsy, though the results haven’t been shared yet. “We want to leave the question open. It doesn’t look like a normal situation,” Ramarao said.

She has now called for the FBI to investigate further. In a recent post on X, she said: 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 in bathroom based on blood spots. It’s a cold blooded mu*d*r declared by authorities as suicide. Lobbying in SF city doesn’t stop us from getting justices. We demand FBi investigation."