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CNBC confirmed that in recent weeks, 26-year-old former OpenAI researcher Suchir Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment.
Balaji leaves OpenAI earlier this year and raised concerns Publicly speaking out, the company allegedly violated U.S. copyright laws when developing its popular ChatGPT chatbot.
“The manner of death has been determined to be suicide,” David Serrano Sewell, executive director of the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, told CNBC in an email on Friday. He said Balaji’s next of kin had been taken to the hospital. to notification.
The San Francisco Police Department said in an email that on the afternoon of November 26, officers were called to an apartment on Buchanan Street for a “wellness check.” The department said they found a deceased adult male and found “no evidence of foul play” during a preliminary investigation.
News of Balaji’s death was first reported in san jose mercury. A family member contacted by the newspaper requested confidentiality.
October, new york times published a report on Balaji’s concerns.
“If you believe what I believe, you have to leave the company,” Balaji told the newspaper. He reportedly believes ChatGPT and other similar chatbots will undermine the commercial viability of the individuals and organizations that create the digital materials and content now widely used to train artificial intelligence systems.
A spokesperson for OpenAI confirmed Balaji’s death.
“We are devastated to learn of this incredibly sad news today and our thoughts are with Suchil’s loved ones at this difficult time,” a spokesperson said in an email.
OpenAI is currently involved in legal disputes with multiple publishers, authors, and artists for allegedly using copyrighted material as artificial intelligence training material. In December, news outlets filed a lawsuit demanding billions of dollars in damages from OpenAI and major backer Microsoft.
“We don’t actually need to train on their data,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said at an event hosted by Bloomberg in Davos earlier this year. “I think that’s something that people don’t understand. Any kind of No specific source of training was a big boost for us.”
If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, please contact Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Please call 988 for support and assistance from a trained advisor.
——CNBC’s Hayden Field contributed reporting.
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