Latest news with #SuchirBalaji
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Yahoo
Authorities declare OpenAI whistleblower's death 'case closed' citing evidence of self-inflicted gunshot wound
Suchir Balaji, an ex-OpenAI researcher who raised concerns about his employer, died in November. His parents have demanded a thorough investigation into his death. An autopsy report said authorities found a gun registered in Balaji's name. San Francisco authorities said a case involving the death of a former OpenAI researcher in November is "closed," citing, among other evidence, a self-inflicted gunshot wound from a pistol registered to the victim, documents shared with Business Insider show. Suchir Balaji, an ex-OpenAI employee who last year raised concerns about copyright issues regarding his former employer, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26. He was 26 years old. Local authorities at the time ruled Balaji's cause of death as an apparent suicide with no evidence of foul play. Balaji's mother, Poornima Ramarao, previously told BI that the family would seek a private autopsy. Attorneys representing Balaji's parents also filed a petition against the city and county of San Francisco in January, demanding the immediate release of public records related to their son's case. In a joint letter to the family attorneys dated February 14 from the San Francisco Police Department and the medical examiner's office, authorities wrote that Balaji was found lying alone in his bathroom with no signs of a "forced entry to the single door leading into the residence." In the police's investigative findings, the letter said, a firearm was found underneath Balaji's leg. "The pistol found at the scene was purchased and registered to Mr. Balaji in January 2024," the letter said. Gun residue particles were found on Balaji's right and left hand, the autopsy report reads. The report said Balaji sustained "a severe firearm injury." "There were no signs of unrelated injuries or bruising to Mr. Balaji," authorities wrote. Authorities said in the letter to the Balaji family's attorneys that they had seen the preliminary report from the independent autopsy the family sought and that the findings were "consistent" with the medical examiner's office's findings, including the entrance and trajectory of the bullet. "The SFPD found no evidence or information to establish that Mr. Balaji died of means other than a suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head," the letter from SFPD and medical examiner's office said. "If you learn of any new information or evidence, please provide it to SFPD. SFPD considers this case closed and will only reopen the criminal investigation if there is a basis for a chargeable offense and the statute of limitations has not expired." Kevin Rooney, an attorney representing Balaji's parents, told BI the family had received the letter and the autopsy report. He did not have further comment. Balaji was an OpenAI researcher for four years, helping the AI startup gather data for its GPT-4 model. A former colleague told BI in an interview that Balaji was instrumental in developing ChatGPT's early predecessor. "He was one of the true geniuses at OpenAI," Tarun Gogineni, a research scientist at OpenAI, said. In October, just a few months after Balaji left the company, The New York Times published an interview in which Balaji accused his former employer of violating copyright law. OpenAI is involved in several other legal battles concerning copyright violations. On November 18, Balaji was named in the Times' lawsuit as a custodian who could provide supporting legal documents for the case. An OpenAI spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Balaji's mother, Ramarao, previously told BI she wasn't satisfied with the police investigation. To raise awareness about her son's case, she organized public vigils and made multiple media appearances. Ramarao wrote in a post on X on Friday afternoon that she wanted a "transparent investigation." A spokesperson for the medical examiner's office did not address Ramarao's social media post when responding to BI's request for comment. An SFPD spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Yahoo
Independent Autopsy Finds OpenAI Whistleblower's Bullet Wound Was Not Consistent With Suicide
San Francisco's medical examiner ruled OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji's death last year a suicide — but the young man's family claims in a recent lawsuit that their own pathologist found differently. As Decrypt and other outlets report, the 26-year-old whistleblower's parents, Poornima Ramarao and Balaji Ramamurthy, say the independent autopsy they commissioned suggests that the gunshot wound that killed their son was inconsistent with suicide — building on claims they've been making since November that their son was murdered rather than having taken his own life. In a lawsuit filed against San Francisco and its police department, the grieving parents are now accusing authorities of covering up foul play and demanding they release all files about Balaji's death. "The lawsuit demands that the city, police department, and medical examiner release public documents withheld under the Public Records Act," the family's attorney Joseph Goethals told Decrypt. If authorities fail to do so expediently, the lawyer said that he would seek a court order to force the issue. Just a month prior to his body being found in his apartment, the New York Times published a bold claim from the former OpenAI employee: that the company was, in spite of its half-baked insistence to the contrary, using "enormous amounts" of copyrighted materials without permission to train its models. Balaji knew this because he'd help gather said data before ChatGPT was released in November 2022. Since Balaji's death, the young tech genius' parents have fought for answers, and said they've been met with resistance from SFPD. Police told Ramarao that she couldn't see her son's body because the bullet that killed him had "destroyed" his face, she said — but when independent pathologist Joseph Cohen examined the body, he discovered that that claim appeared to be false. During that second autopsy, Cohen deduced that the downward and slightly left-to-right trajectory of the single bullet that penetrated Balaji's brainstem would have been unusual for a suicide. He also found a contusion on the back of the young man's head, suggesting, per the suit, that he may have been struck before being shot. Thus far, authorities in San Francisco have been tight-lipped about the case because it's still open. According to a source with direct knowledge who spoke to Fortune magazine, however, that silence may soon end when police and the city medical examiner's office release letters with "detailed facts" that provide more evidence that the young man killed himself. Throughout this debacle, Balaji's family hasn't pointed fingers at OpenAI or anyone else. Instead, the grieving parents are insisting that authorities fully investigate the matter — and, hopefully, start to heal from this unimaginable tragedy. More on OpenAI: OpenAI Seems to Be Low Key Panicking
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Yahoo
Big Tech whistleblower's parents sue, sounding alarm over son's unexpected death
This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The parents of a young California tech whistleblower whose 2024 death was ruled a suicide are now suing the City and County of San Francisco, alleging they violated public records laws by refusing to fulfill their requests for information about their son's death. Suchir Balaji, 26, was an employee at OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, at the time of his Nov. 26, 2024, death. A San Francisco County medical examiner concluded the next day he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside his apartment. "In the two-plus months since their son's passing, Petitioners and their counsel have been stymied at every turn as they have sought more information about the cause of and circumstances surrounding Suchir's tragic death. This petition, they hope, is the beginning of the end of that obstruction," the lawsuit states. San Francisco City Attorney's Office spokesperson Jen Kwart told Fox News Digital that once their office is served, they will review the complaint and respond accordingly. "Mr. Balaji's death is a tragedy, and our hearts go out to his family," Kwart said. Read On The Fox News App Open Ai Whisteblower Found Dead In San Francisco Apartment From Aparent Suicide "It's really been a nightmare for the last three months for them," one of the family's attorneys, Kevin Rooney, told Fox News Digital. Just days before he died, Balaji was "upbeat and happy" during a trip to Catalina Island with his friends for his 26th birthday, the complaint filed Jan. 31 says. The lawsuit describes Balaji as a "child prodigy with a particular interest in and talent for coding." He attended the University of California at Berkeley, and, upon graduating, was hired as an AI researcher at OpenAI. Openai Debuts Chatgpt Gov, A New Version Of The Chatbot For Us Government Agencies "In that position, he was integral in OpenAI's efforts to gather and organize data from the internet used to train GPT-4, a language model used by the company's now-ubiquitous online chatbot, ChatGPT," the complaint says. By August 2024, however, Balaji "had become disillusioned with OpenAI's business practices and decided to leave to pursue his own projects." In October, he was featured in a New York Times article titled "Former Open AI Researcher Says the Company Broke Copyright Law," with his photo. What Is Artificial Intelligence (Ai)? Balaji alleged that "OpenAI violates United States copyright law because ChatGPT trains on copyrighted products of business competitors and then can imitate and substitute those products, running the risk of reducing the commercial viability of OpenAI's competitors to zero," according to the lawsuit. In a Jan. 16 statement, OpenAI described Balaji as a "valued member" of the company's team, and its employees are "still heartbroken by his passing." Balaji's parents, Poornima Ramarao and Bajami Ramamurthy, allege their requests for more information about their son's death were denied unfairly under the California Public Records Act. They further alleged in the lawsuit that investigators did not take their concerns about Balaji's whistleblower status seriously. Rooney said there are good reasons for investigators not to disclose certain information about a criminal case to the public. Openai Reveals Ai Policy Proposals To Best China, Protect Kids: 'This Is A Race America Can And Must Win' "But you should at least communicate with them and let them know generally what's being done to investigate the case," Rooney said. "And if that hasn't been done here because they've made a conclusion that Suchir died by suicide and that the investigation is closed, well … then we do have a right under the law [to view police records]. "When Ms. Ramarao informed the representative that her son had been a whistleblower against OpenAI and had been featured in the New York Times regarding his whistleblower allegations, the representative declined to follow up or seek any additional information," the lawsuit alleged. "Instead, the [medical examiner's office] representative handed Ms. Ramarao Suchir's apartment keys and told her she could retrieve her son's body the following day. The representative also told Ms. Ramarao that she should not be allowed to see Suchir's body and that his face had been destroyed when a bullet went through his eye." Dr. Joseph Cohen, a forensic pathologist hired by Balaji's parents, conducted a private autopsy and noted that Balaji's gunshot wound was "atypical and uncommon in suicides." The 26-year-old also had a contusion on the back of his head, according to the complaint. Cohen also "noted that the trajectory of the bullet was downward with a slight left to right angle" and "that the bullet completely missed the brain before perforating and lodging in the brain stem." Fox News Digital reached out to OpenAI for article source: Big Tech whistleblower's parents sue, sounding alarm over son's unexpected death
Fox News
08-02-2025
- Fox News
Big Tech whistleblower's parents sue, sounding alarm over son's unexpected death
This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The parents of a young California tech whistleblower whose 2024 death was ruled a suicide are now suing the City and County of San Francisco, alleging they violated public records laws by refusing to fulfill their requests for information about their son's death. Suchir Balaji, 26, was an employee at OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, at the time of his Nov. 26, 2024, death. A San Francisco County medical examiner concluded the next day he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside his apartment. "In the two-plus months since their son's passing, Petitioners and their counsel have been stymied at every turn as they have sought more information about the cause of and circumstances surrounding Suchir's tragic death. This petition, they hope, is the beginning of the end of that obstruction," the lawsuit states. San Francisco City Attorney's Office spokesperson Jen Kwart told Fox News Digital that once their office is served, they will review the complaint and respond accordingly. "Mr. Balaji's death is a tragedy, and our hearts go out to his family," Kwart said. "It's really been a nightmare for the last three months for them," one of the family's attorneys, Kevin Rooney, told Fox News Digital. "We really feel that there's a lot of things that are known to us that are inconsistent with suicide and would suggest … that his death was the result of a homicide." Just days before he died, Balaji was "upbeat and happy" during a trip to Catalina Island with his friends for his 26th birthday, the complaint filed Jan. 31 says. The lawsuit describes Balaji as a "child prodigy with a particular interest in and talent for coding." He attended the University of California at Berkeley, and, upon graduating, was hired as an AI researcher at OpenAI. "In that position, he was integral in OpenAI's efforts to gather and organize data from the internet used to train GPT-4, a language model used by the company's now-ubiquitous online chatbot, ChatGPT," the complaint says. By August 2024, however, Balaji "had become disillusioned with OpenAI's business practices and decided to leave to pursue his own projects." In October, he was featured in a New York Times article titled "Former Open AI Researcher Says the Company Broke Copyright Law," with his photo. Balaji alleged that "OpenAI violates United States copyright law because ChatGPT trains on copyrighted products of business competitors and then can imitate and substitute those products, running the risk of reducing the commercial viability of OpenAI's competitors to zero," according to the lawsuit. In a Jan. 16 statement, OpenAI described Balaji as a "valued member" of the company's team, and its employees are "still heartbroken by his passing." Balaji's parents, Poornima Ramarao and Bajami Ramamurthy, allege their requests for more information about their son's death were denied unfairly under the California Public Records Act. They further alleged in the lawsuit that investigators did not take their concerns about Balaji's whistleblower status seriously. Rooney said there are good reasons for investigators not to disclose certain information about a criminal case to the public. "But you should at least communicate with them and let them know generally what's being done to investigate the case," Rooney said. "And if that hasn't been done here because they've made a conclusion that Suchir died by suicide and that the investigation is closed, well … then we do have a right under the law [to view police records]. "When Ms. Ramarao informed the representative that her son had been a whistleblower against OpenAI and had been featured in the New York Times regarding his whistleblower allegations, the representative declined to follow up or seek any additional information," the lawsuit alleged. "Instead, the [medical examiner's office] representative handed Ms. Ramarao Suchir's apartment keys and told her she could retrieve her son's body the following day. The representative also told Ms. Ramarao that she should not be allowed to see Suchir's body and that his face had been destroyed when a bullet went through his eye." Dr. Joseph Cohen, a forensic pathologist hired by Balaji's parents, conducted a private autopsy and noted that Balaji's gunshot wound was "atypical and uncommon in suicides." The 26-year-old also had a contusion on the back of his head, according to the complaint. Cohen also "noted that the trajectory of the bullet was downward with a slight left to right angle" and "that the bullet completely missed the brain before perforating and lodging in the brain stem." Fox News Digital reached out to OpenAI for comment.
