Suchir Balaji’s family demand outside investigation into OpenAI whistleblower’s death
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Police in San Francisco previously ruled Balaji’s death a suicide and stated there was no evidence of foul play. The family of an OpenAI whistleblower have called for his death to be reinvestigated after it was ruled to be a suicide. Suchir Balaji, 26, a former OpenAI engineer who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law was found dead just days before he was called to be a witness in a case, his family said.
Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26 in what police said “appeared to be a suicide. No evidence of foul play was found during the initial investigation.”. The city’s chief medical examiner’s office confirmed the manner of death to be suicide but a congressman has now backed calls for an FBI investigation into the death.
![[Poornima Ramarao and Balaji Ramamurthy said they are still seeking answers]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/16/14/Screenshot-2025-01-16-at-14.28.52.jpg)
His parents Poornima Ramarao and Balaji Ramamurthy said they are still seeking answers, describing their son as a “happy, smart and brave young man” who loved to hike and recently returned from a trip with friends. “The pin drive is missing. His computer was messed up. His desktop was left on for three days. It’s messed up”, she added.
They claim he was called as a witness for a copyright case against OpenAI four days before his death. “You can see how happy he is. We want the world to see his happy mood just before his death,” said Ramarao. She added that there was some “sign of struggle in the bathroom and looks like someone hit him in the bathroom based on blood spots.”.
