Feature / April 13, 2026 The Death of an AI Whistleblower Suchir Balaji sought to expose OpenAI’s data abuses. Did it come at the expense of his own life? This article appears in the May 2026 issue, with the headline “The Death of an AI Whistleblower.” On October 23, 2024, Suchir Balaji’s face appeared, freshly shaved, boyish but serious, partially shadowed, in The New York Times as he announced himself as a whistleblower against one of the most powerful technology companies in the world.