Dead OpenAI Whistleblower Had Been Named as Potential Witness in Lawsuit Against Employer

Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI employee and whistleblower, was reportedly being considered as a witness in a major lawsuit against OpenAI for alleged copyright infringement. Balaji, who had worked at OpenAI for four years, left the company in August after becoming disillusioned with its data scraping practices used to train AI models. He had expressed his willingness to testify in the strongest copyright cases, including a high-profile lawsuit filed by _The New York Times_ last December. Balaji believed that OpenAI's use of copyrighted data did not constitute "fair use," as the AI models created copies of the data without producing fundamentally novel outputs.

Tragically, Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26, in what police described as an apparent suicide. His death was not reported until December 13. OpenAI publicly mourned his passing, expressing condolences to his family. In addition to the _NYT_ lawsuit, Balaji's documents were sought in another case filed by comedian Sarah Silverman against OpenAI and Meta. A memorial for Balaji is being planned at the India Community Center in Milpitas, California.

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Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI employee, was considered a potential witness in major copyright infringement lawsuits against OpenAI.
Balaji had criticized OpenAI's data scraping practices, which he believed violated copyright laws, and expressed his concerns in a profile with The New York Times.
Balaji was found dead in his apartment in November, with his death being reported as an apparent suicide.
OpenAI and other tech companies claim their use of copyrighted data is "fair use," but Balaji argued that their AI models do not produce fundamentally novel outputs.

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Dead OpenAI Whistleblower Had Been Named as Potential Witness in Lawsuit Against Employer

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