The dad and mom of deceased OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji have sued town of San Francisco and the San Francisco Police Division, alleging that the actual reason for his demise was not suicide, however homicide.
The lawsuit, filed in January, alleges that the SFPD lined up the crime, ruling it a suicide with out conducting an intensive investigation.
Balaji, who had labored as a researcher at OpenAI, was discovered lifeless in his San Francisco house final November. Attorneys say Balaji’s dad and mom, Poornima Ramarao and Balaji Ramamurthy, requested additional investigation into his demise however had been advised the case was already closed.
“The lawsuit calls for that town, police division, and medical expert launch public paperwork withheld beneath the Public Information Act,” Joseph Goethals, legal professional for the petitioners, advised Decrypt. He mentioned that if the paperwork weren’t supplied inside 10 days, and “no legitimate exceptions apply, a lawsuit can compel their launch. We’ll search a court docket order to acquire them.”
The lawsuit claims that SFPD violated the California Public Information Act by unlawfully withholding public information of the case. Attorneys for Ramarao and Ramamurthy additionally argued that the investigation into their son’s demise was rushed and insufficient, with officers ignoring key forensic findings and failing to handle their requests for additional inquiry.
The lawsuit calls for the speedy disclosure of all experiences, images, and movies, together with protection of authorized prices.
Mentioned Geothals: “If the San Francisco Superior Court docket doesn’t interpret and impose the legislation accurately, we are going to search recourse with the Court docket of Enchantment. We hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Balaji labored for OpenAI from November 2020 to August 2024. In an interview with The New York Occasions in October, he mentioned that earlier than the general public launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, he had helped OpenAI collect and use “monumental quantities” of knowledge taken from the web with out permission.
Based on the lawsuit, in December, Balaji’s household employed forensic pathologist Dr. Joseph Cohen to carry out a non-public post-mortem. In his report, Dr. Cohen decided that there was a single gunshot wound within the mid-forehead, barely to the appropriate of the bridge of his nostril.
Dr. Cohen mentioned that the bullet trajectory was uncommon for a suicide, because it traveled downward at a slight left-to-right angle, fully lacking the mind earlier than lodging within the brainstem, in line with the go well with. Dr. Cohen recognized a contusion on the again of Balaji’s head, which he mentioned raised additional questions in regards to the circumstances of his demise.
The San Francisco Police Division didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark by Decrypt.
The lawsuit referred to as out the circumstances of Bilaji’s demise. His physique was discovered every week after The New York Occasions talked about the whistleblower in a court docket submitting associated to its lawsuit towards OpenAI.
Regardless of Balaji’s revelations, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman pushed again on the New York Occasions’ claims. Talking on the newspaper’s annual DealBook Summit, Altman dismissed the allegations. He additional claimed that the publication’s lawsuit towards OpenAI over use of its supplies to coach AI fashions put the paper on the “unsuitable aspect of historical past.”
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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