NEW YORK,  Dec 15: An OpenAI researcher-turned-whistleblower has been found dead in his San Francisco apartment, authorities confirmed. The body of 26-year-old Suchir Balaji was discovered on November 26, after police received a call requesting a welfare check on him. The San Francisco medical examiner's office ruled his death a suicide, and there was no evidence of foul play.

In the months leading up to his death, Balaji had publicly criticized OpenAI's practices. The company has been facing multiple lawsuits over its data-gathering methods. In October, the New York Times published an interview with Balaji, where he accused OpenAI of violating US copyright law while developing its popular ChatGPT chatbot.

According to the article, after working at OpenAI for four years as a researcher, Balaji concluded that the company’s use of copyrighted data to train ChatGPT was illegal and that technologies like ChatGPT were harming the internet. OpenAI, however, maintains that its models are "trained on publicly available data."

Balaji left OpenAI in August and told the New York Times that he had been focusing on personal projects since then. He was originally from Cupertino, California, and went on to study computer science at the University of California, Berkeley.

In response to the news, an OpenAI spokesperson expressed deep sorrow, stating, "We are devastated to learn of this incredibly sad news today, and our hearts go out to Suchir's loved ones during this difficult time," as reported by CNBC News.

OpenAI is currently facing lawsuits from U.S. and Canadian news publishers, including the New York Times, and a group of prominent authors, including John Grisham. The lawsuits allege that OpenAI illegally used news articles to train its software. In November, OpenAI told the BBC that its software is "grounded in fair use and related international copyright principles that are fair for creators and support innovation."