OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

Wow. Suchir was my project partner in a CS class at Berkeley (Operating Systems!). Incredibly smart, humble, nice person. It was obvious that he was going to do amazing things. This is really awful.

There are some pretty callous comments on this thread.<p>This is really sad. Suchir was just 26, and graduated from Berkeley 3 years ago.<p>Here’s his personal site: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;suchir.net&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;suchir.net&#x2F;</a>.<p>I think he was pretty brave for standing up against what is generally perceived as an injustice being done by one of the biggest companies in the world, just a few years out of college. I’m not sure how many people in his position would do the same.<p>I’m sorry for his family. He was clearly a talented engineer. On his LinkedIn he has some competitive programming prizes which are impressive too. He probably had a HN account.<p>Before others post about the definition of whistleblower or talk about assassination theories just pause to consider whether, if in his position, you would that want that to be written about you or a friend.

I&#x27;m confused by the term &quot;whistleblower&quot; here. Was anything actual released that wasn&#x27;t publicly known?<p>It seems like he just disagreed with whether it was &quot;fair use&quot; or not, and it was notable because he was at the company. But the facts were always known, OpenAI was training on public copyrighted text data. You could call him an objector, or internal critic or something.

<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;suchir.net&#x2F;fair_use.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;suchir.net&#x2F;fair_use.html</a><p>When does generative AI qualify for fair use? by Suchir Balaji

Police now say it&#x27;s been ruled a suicide:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sfstandard.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;12&#x2F;13&#x2F;key-openai-whistleblower-dead-by-suicide&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sfstandard.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;12&#x2F;13&#x2F;key-openai-whistleblower-d...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;cyrusfarivar&#x2F;2024&#x2F;12&#x2F;13&#x2F;openai-whistleblowers-death-ruled-suicide-police-say&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;cyrusfarivar&#x2F;2024&#x2F;12&#x2F;13&#x2F;openai-...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.huffpost.com&#x2F;entry&#x2F;openai-whistleblower-dead_n_675cd791e4b07cc6a3197894" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.huffpost.com&#x2F;entry&#x2F;openai-whistleblower-dead_n_6...</a>

RIP. Suchir was a man of principles, he probably had to give up his OpenAI options as a result of his stance - OpenAI is reported to have a very restrictive offboarding agreements [1]<p>&quot; It forbids them, for the rest of their lives, from criticizing their former employer. Even acknowledging that the NDA exists is a violation of it.<p>If a departing employee declines to sign the document, or if they violate it, they can lose all vested equity they earned during their time at the company, which is likely worth millions of dollars.&quot;<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vox.com&#x2F;future-perfect&#x2F;2024&#x2F;5&#x2F;17&#x2F;24158478&#x2F;openai-departures-sam-altman-employees-chatgpt-release" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vox.com&#x2F;future-perfect&#x2F;2024&#x2F;5&#x2F;17&#x2F;24158478&#x2F;openai...</a>

Condolences to the family. It sounds like he was a very thoughtful and principled person.

This is incredibly sad, Suchir went to my high school and we both went to Berkeley together. He was clearly very intelligent, and I was always sure he&#x27;d go on to be very successful &#x2F; do interesting things.<p>If you&#x27;re struggling reading this, I want to say that you&#x27;re not alone. Even if it doesn&#x27;t feel like it right now, the world truly wants you to be happy.<p>The path is open to you:<p>Old Path White Clouds [0]<p>Opening the Heart of Compassion [1]<p>Seeing That Frees [2]<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;z-library.sk&#x2F;book&#x2F;1313569&#x2F;e77753&#x2F;old-path-white-clouds-walking-in-the-footsteps-of-the-buddha.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;z-library.sk&#x2F;book&#x2F;1313569&#x2F;e77753&#x2F;old-path-white-clou...</a> [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;z-library.sk&#x2F;book&#x2F;26536611&#x2F;711f2c&#x2F;opening-the-heart-of-compassion.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;z-library.sk&#x2F;book&#x2F;26536611&#x2F;711f2c&#x2F;opening-the-heart-...</a> [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;z-library.sk&#x2F;book&#x2F;3313275&#x2F;acb03c&#x2F;seeing-that-frees-meditations-on-emptiness-and-dependent-arising.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;z-library.sk&#x2F;book&#x2F;3313275&#x2F;acb03c&#x2F;seeing-that-frees-m...</a>

His parents are skeptical it&#x27;s a suicide and are ordering a second, independent autopsy: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sfist.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;12&#x2F;26&#x2F;parents-of-openai-whistleblower-dont-believe-he-died-by-suicide-order-second-autopsy&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sfist.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;12&#x2F;26&#x2F;parents-of-openai-whistleblower...</a>

This is extremely sad and I&#x27;m sorry for Suchir&#x27;s family and friends.<p>As someone who has struggled with suicidal ideation while working in the tech industry for over a decade, I do wonder if the insane culture of Bay Area tech has a part to play.<p>Besides the extreme hustle culture mindset, there&#x27;s also a kind of naive techno-optimism that can make you feel insane. You&#x27;re surrounded by people who think breaking the law is OK and that they&#x27;re changing the world by selling smart kitchen appliances, even while they&#x27;re exploiting workers in developing countries for cheap tech support and stepping over OD victims outside their condo.<p>This mindset is so pervasive you really start to wonder if you&#x27;re crazy for having empathy or any sense of justice.<p>I have no special insight except to guess that going from being an obviously brilliant student at Berkeley to a cut-throat startup like OpenAI would be a jarring experience. You&#x27;ve achieved everything you worked your whole life for, and you find you&#x27;re doing work that is completely out of whack with your morals and values.

Suchir’s suicide (if it was a suicide) is a tragedy. I happen to share some of his views, and I am negative on the impact of current ML tech on society—not because of what it can do, but precisely because of the way it is trained.<p>The ends do not justify the means—and it is easy to see the means having wide-ranging systemic effects besides the ends, even if we pretended those ends were well-defined and planned (which, aside from the making profit, they are clearly not: just think of the nebulous ideas and contention around AGI).

Normally the word &quot;whistleblower&quot; means someone who revealed previously-unknown facts about an organization. In this case he&#x27;s a former employee who had an interview where he criticized OpenAI, but the facts that he was in possession of were not only widely known at the time but were the subject of an ongoing lawsuit that had launched months prior.<p>As much as I want to give this a charitable reading, the only explanation I can think of for using the word whistleblower here is to imply that there&#x27;s something shady about the death.

Unfortunately, many whistleblowers don&#x27;t take proper precautions to release information that will make them a target.<p>QubesOS, disposable laptop, faraday cage, and never work from home. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.qubes-os.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.qubes-os.org&#x2F;</a>

Everyone will naturally speculate about anything current or former OpenAI employees do, whether it’s if they resign, the statements they make, or in this case their own suicide. It’s only fair not to speculate too far given that since there are thousands of current and former OpenAI employees, they are subject to the same conditions as the general population.

Being this is ostensibly related to an AI company trying to make AGI reminds me of &quot;Eagle Eye&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt1059786&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt1059786&#x2F;</a>

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;xBuPg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;xBuPg</a>

Interesting that the NYT article about him states that OpenAI started developing GPT-4 before the ChatGPT release. They sure were convinced by the early GPT-2&#x2F;3 results.<p>&gt;In early 2022, Mr. Balaji began gathering digital data for a new project called GPT-4<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;10&#x2F;23&#x2F;technology&#x2F;openai-copyright-law.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;10&#x2F;23&#x2F;technology&#x2F;openai-copyrig...</a>

Metapost - Reading the (civilized!) comments on HN vs those on Reddit is such a contrast.<p>I&#x27;m a bit worried that while regulators are focusing on X&#x2F;Facebook&#x2F;Instagram&#x2F;etc. from a moderation perspective, <i>not one regulator</i> seems to be looking at the increasingly extreme and unmoderated rhetoric on Reddit. People are straight up braying for murder in the comments there. I&#x27;m worried that one of the most visited sites in the US is actively radicalizing a good chunk of the population.

What a terrible and sad loss.

Deeply saddening, especially given what was at stake. It takes someone truly exceptional to challenge the establishment. RIP Suchir. May the light of your candle, while it burned, have sparked many others.

Even if he was a whistleblower and had documents against them, there&#x27;s 12 other witnesses that prosecutors have in the lawsuits against OpenAI, and they&#x27;re not dead

If death is a suicide it doesn&#x27;t automatically means that third parties weren&#x27;t involved. It&#x27;s possible to push (temporally) vulnerable people over the edge, even if when helped&#x2F;left alone they wouldn&#x27;t.<p>Especially if one party have incentive to discredit&#x2F;destroy such person, so court&#x2F;jury won&#x27;t take their testimony seriously(or there will be no testimony at all). After all it&#x27;s almost impossible to connect such actions with subsequent suicide.<p>While suicide is by definition action of individual, what leads to it isn&#x27;t always the same.

People neglect the priorities of working life. First safety, it is best to avoid any unnecessary risks and to act so that you stay safe. second security.

Dude graduated from Cal with a 3.98 in Computer Science! Certainly kicks my sorry ass. Being brilliant can be a burden, I guess.

Okay, first boeing now openai... Yep, my view of this world being more civilized than portrayed in the movies is disappearing every day. Looks like we&#x27;re going to start having to take conspiracy movie-like theories seriously now.

I wonder who called to ask about his well-being.<p>The Boeing guy killed himself, this guy apparently killed himself. The pattern of David vs Goliath, where David kills himself, is almost becoming a pattern.

Non-paywalled alternative (also the source in the other Reddit HN post):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.siliconvalley.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;12&#x2F;13&#x2F;openai-whistleblower-found-dead-in-san-francisco-apartment&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.siliconvalley.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;12&#x2F;13&#x2F;openai-whistleblowe...</a>

may he rip!

Anyone who&#x27;s a whistleblower should compile key docs and put it in a &quot;dead man&#x27;s switch&quot; service that releases your testimony&#x2F;docs to multiple news agencies in the event of your untimely demise. The company you&#x27;re whistle blowing against and their major shareholders should know this exists. Also, regularly post public video attesting to you current mental state.

Given the outcomes of the Facebook mood experiments and how I&#x27;ve seen people put together <i>very</i> targeted ads, I&#x27;m wondering whether it&#x27;s possible to induce someone (who&#x27;s already under a lot of pressure) to commit suicide simply via a targeted information campaign. I&#x27;m speculating less on what happened here, and more on the general &quot;yes that would be possible&quot; situation.<p>How would one protect themselves from something like this? Avoid all &#x27;algorithmically&#x27; generated data sources, AdBlock, VPN, don&#x27;t log in anywhere?

&quot;No evidence of foul play.&quot; What about the evidence that he&#x27;s only 26 and has a successful career in the booming Ai industry? He doesn&#x27;t seem a likely candidate for suicide.<p>Fair use hasn&#x27;t been tested in court. He has documents that show OpenAI&#x27;s intention and communications about the legal framework for it. He was directly involved in web scraping and openly discussing the legal perspectives with his superiors. That is damning evidence.

So, not at all the point of the article, but ... who does Mercury News think is benefited by the embedded map at the bottom of the article with a point just labeled &quot;San Francisco, CA&quot;, centered at Market &amp; Van Ness? It&#x27;s not where the guy lived. If you&#x27;re a non-local reader confused about where SF is, the map is far too zoomed in to show you.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Roko&#x27;s_basilisk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Roko&#x27;s_basilisk</a>

When I die, as a last wish, I hope people will go wild with speculative assassination theories. Especially if the police find &quot;no evidence&quot; of foul-play or the coroner says it was due to &quot;old age&quot;--it can only mean the cops and docs are also in on it.

Half an hour of talk with his relatives, friends, girlfriend etc and I can suggest if he or someone else murdered him. I doubt the police will go such hassle

Think about the current geopolitical climate and the possibility this person was actually targeted by malicious actors as a way to sow chaos and distrust in the establishment in the West. What better way to make people grow weary of the digital platforms that are making up a majority part of their lives in their bubbles.