A former OpenAI employee who said the company had violated copyright laws during work on its ChatGPT chatbot has been found dead, authrotities confirmed this week.
According to CNBC, San Francisco police and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed that Suchir Balaji, 26, was found dead inside his Buchanan Street apartment on Nov. 26.
The medical examiner’s office said Balaji had committed suicide and this week police officials said there was “currently, no evidence of foul play.”
However, information that he held was expected to play a key part in lawsuits against the San Francisco-based company.
Silicon Valley reports: Balaji’s death comes three months after he publicly accused OpenAI of violating U.S. copyright law while developing ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence program that has become a moneymaking sensation used by hundreds of millions of people across the world.
Its public release in late 2022 spurred a torrent of lawsuits against OpenAI from authors, computer …