On November 21 last year, Suchir Balaji celebrated his 26th birthday, with few of his friends in San Francisco, marking off a turbulent year that saw him quitting OpenAI as a researcher and later turning into a whistleblower. In the next two days, Balaji was supposed to catch a flight back home to California, where his parents were waiting for him.

Balaji never caught that flight.

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On November 26, San Francisco police discovered his body in his apartment, under mysterious circumstances. Initially dubbed as a suicide by the local police, the mysterious death of Balaji, an OpenAI researcher who turned into an anti Artificial Intelligence (AI) advocate, has raised several uncomfortable questions.

His parents have refuted the suicide theory of police and demanded an investigation by FBI, claiming there were signs of struggle in his apartment and alleged injuries on his body. Reiterating the parents’ claims, ‘X’ CEO Elon Musk has demanded an impartial investigation, stating, “This doesn’t seem like a suicide.”

Balaji had openly advocated against the “fair use” policy of his ex-employers and was also featured in a lawsuit filed by The New York Times newspaper against OpenAI. He had claimed that OpenAI training ChatGPT AI models under “fair use policy” infringes upon the copyright laws.

With stakes riding that high, Balaji was a person of interest for many and his death has left many questions unanswered. In this article, we will try to demystify the life and work of...

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