Developer created a script that complains daily to OpenAI CEO about unused memory
A developer under the nickname IainKay posted a humorous Bash script for Linux on GitHub called Ram-Altman. It monitors how much RAM remains unused on a computer and can send an email about it to Sam Altman once a day.
The reason was a statement by OpenAI's CEO in the Cheeky Pint podcast. Altman said that keeping a lot of DRAM in home PCs is inefficient because the memory is used only about 5% of the time. Enthusiasts took this comment poorly, as memory prices are already rising due to demand from the AI industry.
The script checks the MemAvailable metric in /proc/meminfo every five minutes. If more than 10% of memory is free, it composes an email about the gigabytes that "could be working in an OpenAI data center." No more than one email is sent per day, the texts are assembled from different variations each time, and the --dry-run mode allows viewing the email without sending it. Altman’s email address is not included in the code; the user specifies the recipient themselves.
The author emphasizes that the project is intended as a joke and asks users not to organize mass mailings. Altman appreciated the humor: he temporarily changed his name on X to Ram Altman and later clarified that he supports increasing memory production and believes users have the right to install as much RAM as they want in their PCs.
