On October 23, 2024, a young Indian-American who had a bachelor’s degree from the University of Berkeley wrote on X:
I recently participated in an NYT story about fair use and generative AI and why I’m sceptical “fair use” would be a plausible defence for a lot of generative AI products. A little over a month later, he was found dead in his San Francisco apartment.
Just a week after he had been named as a potential witness in a lawsuit brought against OpenAI by The New York Times (NYT). (Source: India Today)
Interestingly, the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office and the San Francisco Police Department determined Balaji’s death to be a suicide despite the mysterious circumstances around his sudden demise.
But was it suicide?
Suchir’s parents don’t think so.
They argue that Balaji was in good spirits before his death, had no history of mental illness, and no suicide note was found.
Additionally, they engaged private investigators and conducted a second autopsy. The results from these two showed that it was not suicide. She shared the results in a post on X.
The video shared by investigative journalist George Webb clearly shows the blood and the fight that would have occurred.
His mother raised her suspicion about the circumstances and the potentially damaging impact of Suchir’s testimony against OpenAI as factors that may have played into his death.
“A lot of investment has gone into the AI industry. He was named as a witness by the NYT. Within a week, he was found dead. He had documents and some information that would have been very critical. It would have shaken the AI industry, especially OpenAI and Microsoft. If he had given his testimony, it would have had a very big impact,” a grieving Poornima said. (Source: India Today)
Suchir left OpenAI in October after he had spent four years in OpenAI as an artificial intelligence researcher, where he “helped gather and organize the enormous amounts of internet data the company used to build its online chatbot, ChatGPT.” (Source: NYT)
Although Balaji’s primary contention was copyright issues, his critique extended to AI development’s broader ethical and legal implications. He expressed worries about the potential harm AI could cause to the internet ecosystem and society at large, suggesting that the technology could cause more harm than good.
This was part of his reasoning for leaving OpenAI, indicating that his concerns were not solely about legal compliance but also about the ethical use of technology.
Is the US a hell for Corporate Whistleblowers?
Suchir Balaji is not the first corporate whistleblower to have died in 2024. There were two other cases.
On March 9, 2024, John Barnett was found dead in his vehicle in a hotel parking lot in Charleston, South Carolina, from a gunshot wound which the Charleston County coroner from a “self-inflicted” wound! A suicide. He was a former quality manager at Boeing with over three decades of experience.
Now, Barnett had raised concerns about safety issues in producing the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. He reported problems such as defective manufacturing processes and substandard parts, which he believed compromised passenger safety.
Barnett retired from Boeing in 2017 but continued his work on the malpractices in Boeing after that as well.
In 2019, John Barnett spoke out to the British broadcaster BBC about various malpractices at Boeing, including overworking employees and inadequate aircraft maintenance. That same year, he was featured in a New York Times article highlighting additional quality concerns, explicitly mentioning the presence of metal shavings at his former facility.
Although Boeing denied his allegations, a 2017 FAA review substantiated several of Barnett’s claims. The review revealed that over 50 “non-conforming” plane components were unaccounted for, with their locations unknown.
In 2021, the OSHA verdict favored Boeing, so Barnett continued further by appealing against that. In 2022, he was featured in a Netflix documentary, “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing.”
In January 2024, a 737 MAX 9 operated by Alaska Airlines experienced a fuselage rupture, forming a hole and blowing out a window and a piece of fuselage. Even then, Barnett suggested that it was “a Boeing problem and not a 737 problem.”
Barnett claimed that while the Boeing Everett Factory had great “attention to quality and safety,” it was replaced with the company cutting corners at its South Carolina plant, where the management was from the military.
The other whistleblower who died in suspicious circumstances was Joshua Dean. In early May 2024, Dean, aged 45, died suddenly after a brief illness. Interestingly, he was also a quality inspector at Spirit AeroSystems, which built the 737 Max aircraft.
Dean raised concerns in October 2022 about improperly drilled holes in a plane’s rear section, which is critical for maintaining cabin pressure during flight.
He alleged serious misconduct by senior management and filed complaints with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Investigations found substance in Dean’s allegations. (Source: Newsweek). Even though he was pretty healthy and followed a healthy lifestyle, he died due to a “sudden and fast-spreading infection.”
There are no clear links between these deaths and authorities in Boeing or that these deaths were indeed murder.
The Revolving Door: Corporates Collude with Intelligence and Administration
There is something off in the American corporate culture these days.
While whistleblowers, who should get protection under law, are being killed in strange and questionable circumstances while they are key witnesses in cases against large corporations that are key to US national security, there are clear indications of how intelligence agencies and the US administration are working together with those corporate entities.
In 2008, Congress revealed that Southwest operated 60,000 flights in 2006-07 despite knowing Boeing planes failed FAA safety standards. After admitting this, the FAA allowed 1,000+ additional flights. Scrutiny intensified after 737 MAX crashes in 2018-19 and renewed in 2023 after a 737 fuselage rupture. (Source: Seattle Times) In these Congressional hearing, the clear takeaway was that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was often deferential to Boeing.
It is not difficult to see why. After all, there is a “revolving door” between the officials in administration and intelligence and the corporations that they have to oversee.
In 2022 alone, the 20 highest-paid defence contractors hired 672 former government officials, military officers, members of Congress and senior legislative staff, according to a report commissioned by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Boeing hired the most by far, 85. Boeing also hired more former government officials to executive positions than any other Pentagon contractor, the report showed. At the FAA, it’s common for senior political appointees to come from industry, and return to it after their tours in government. (Source: Seattle Times)
Similarly, in June 2024, OpenAI appointed Paul M. Nakasone, a recently retired U.S. Army General and former National Security Agency (NSA) director, to its board.
Was that just a coincidence?
The Race Angle?
Suchir Balaji’s case was one of suicide by an OpenAI whistleblower if you were only reading the American and European mainstream media. Not one of the media personnel had the courage or investigative mind to just peek into his apartment to check if it really looked like a suicide scene.
It was not until his parents hired private investigators and went for a second autopsy while engaging influencers on X that the reality of foul play dawned on everyone.
The foul play argument against the suicide claim by officials gained credence when Elon Musk added his comment saying, “This doesn’t seem like a suicide” on December 29th to the X post by Poornima Rao (Suchir’s mother).
This tragic situation comes at the time of a raging debate on H1B visas and the hate and vitriol against Indian-American immigrants in the American media. Had he not been an Indian-American, would his case have been given more attention? That is the question that many in the Indian-American community are asking.
What started as a post on X by Laura Loomer against the H1Bs suddenly took a vicious turn, with hate and vitriol being hurled against the Indian-American community openly. Even those like Vivek Ramaswamy, who is an American-born patriotic American, were not spared.
While the extreme right-wing MAGA groups are targeting Indian Americans in general and Hindus specifically with their racist ideology, the leftist/liberal groups aligned to the current woke Democratic Party have cheered this targeting of Indian Americans and Hindus with a sense of satisfaction. For, they have been targeting Hindu Americans for the last many years actively and passively using the caste and nationalism card.
As Hindu Americans become more active in public life and gain prominence in top corporations, government, and administration, the values that have shaped their families will push them to the top. We are already seeing that effect.
With such prominence comes scrutiny and targeted action by other groups. This is especially true when a community aligns itself with political groups that want to target the established administrative state. This secretive group thrives on using corporations to carry out its dirty work.
Indians, in general, and Hindus specifically, will need to coalesce as a social group to find mechanisms to get their voices heard above the cacophony of the mainstream media that has little integrity left. Without our own voice, we will be defined by others. Others who find our existence and push for excellence troublesome and inconvenient. No mother should have to deal with the death of her son while begging for her story to be heard.
Suchir’s story could easily have been the story of the son of any Indian American.
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