An OpenAI spokesperson was found dead in a San Francisco apartment from an attempted suicide

This story is about suicide. If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

Former OpenAI employee and former referee, Suchir Balaji, was recently found dead at his home in San Francisco, California.

The San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner identified Balaji, 26, as the deceased, according to the San Jose Mercury News. The way of death has become dominated by suicide.

The medical examiner said he has informed Balaji's family.

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Balaji was found dead in his apartment on Buchanan Street on November 26, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department told the media. First responders were called to his home to conduct a health check, and no evidence of foul play was found during the initial investigation.

“We are devastated to hear about this incredibly sad news today and our hearts go out to Suchir's loved ones at this difficult time,” an OpenAI spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

This comes after Balaji, an AI researcher, raised concerns about OpenAI's copyright infringement in an interview with the New York Times in October.

A man is seen using the OpenAI ChatGPT artificial intelligence chat website in this July 18, 2023 file photo. (Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Balaji resigned from OpenAI after working there for almost four years when he felt that the technology would bring more harm than good to society, he told this newspaper, noting that his biggest concern was the way the company allegedly used copyrighted data, saying he believed the practices were damaging the Internet.

“I was at OpenAI for about 4 years and worked on ChatGPT for the last 1.5 years,” Balaji wrote in October on social media platform X. “At first I didn't know much about copyright, fair use, etc. I want to know after seeing all the lawsuits filed against GenAI companies.”

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The OpenAI logo is displayed on a laptop in Beijing, China, on Friday, Feb. 24, 2023. (Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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“When I tried to understand the issue better, I ended up coming to the conclusion that fair use seems to be an incomprehensible defense for many productive AI products, for the basic reason that they cannot create others that compete with the data they are trained,” continues his work.

OpenAI and Microsoft are currently facing several lawsuits from news outlets accusing OpenAI of copyright infringement.

Fox News Digital reached out to the medical examiner and San Francisco police.

Fox News' Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.