Steven Yeun, from left, Andrew Lincoln and Norman Reedus attend the PaleyFest New York "The Walking Dead" panel discussion during The William S. Paley Television Festival at The Paley Center for Media on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2014, In New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)
NEW YORK (AP) --
The Nielsen Company says the 17.3 million people who watched the fifth season opener of "The Walking Dead" Sunday is a record both for the show and for a cable television program.
Nielsen said that represented the biggest audience ever for a single non-sports program on cable TV. The AMC drama beat its previous record audience of 16.1 million for the fourth season opener last October.
"The Walking Dead" also had a staggering 11 million viewers among 18-to-49-year-olds, considered most valuable to advertisers. That beats every other scripted show on TV this season, with CBS' premiere of "The Big Bang Theory" coming closest with 6.9 million in that demographic.
Those numbers will only increase when time-delayed viewership is counted in. The discussion show, "The Talking Dead," had 6.9 million viewers.
Suchir Balaji poses for a photo in Hawaii in 2018. Balaji was a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who died in November 2024. (Balaji Ramamurthy via AP)
Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law, has died, according to his parents and San Francisco officials. He was 26.
Balaji worked at OpenAI for nearly four years before quitting in August. He was well-regarded by colleagues at the San Francisco company, where a co-founder this week called him one of OpenAI's strongest contributors who was essential to developing some of its products.
"We are devastated to learn of this incredibly sad news and our hearts go out to Suchir's loved ones during this difficult time," said a statement from OpenAI.
Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on Nov. 26 in what police said "appeared to be a suicide. No evidence of foul play was found during the initial investigation." The city's chief medical examiner's office confirmed the manner of death to be suicide.
His parents Poornima Ramarao and Balaji Ramamurthy said they are still seeking answers, describing their son as a "happy, smart and brave young man" who loved to hike and recently returned from a trip with friends.
Balaji grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and first arrived at the fledgling AI research lab for a 2018 summer internship while studying computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He returned a few years later to work at OpenAI, where one of his first projects, called WebGPT, helped pave the way for ChatGPT.
"Suchir's contributions to this project were essential, and it wouldn't have succeeded without him," said OpenAI co-founder John Schulman in a social media post memorializing Balaji. Schulman, who recruited Balaji to his team, said what... Read More
