Developer Creates Satirical RAM Monitor That Emails OpenAI's Sam Altman About Underutilized Memory
A GitHub project called ram-altman takes a humorous jab at the OpenAI CEO's recent comments about wasted computer memory by automatically reporting idle RAM usage directly to him.
A newly published GitHub repository named ram-altman contains a bash script designed to track memory consumption on personal computers and send status reports to OpenAI's chief executive. The project emerged in response to Sam Altman's recent remarks on a podcast, where he characterized computers sitting idle with underutilized RAM as "quite terrible." Developer Iain Kay created the script as a tongue-in-cheek response, crafting a tool that dispatches daily emails to Altman whenever RAM usage falls below 90 percent. According to Kay, "The memory accounting is. The correspondence isn't," clarifying the satirical nature of the endeavor.
The script relies on the MemAvailable query, which provides the kernel's calculation of available memory that applications can access without triggering disk swapping. Once deployed, the tool performs checks every five minutes and triggers a message to Altman once daily if the system detects wasted memory resources.
The automated emails draw from CSV-formatted logs documenting RAM consumption patterns throughout each day. Messages generated by the script cycle through eight different subject lines, ten distinct message templates with comedic flair, and six varying sign-offs. The ram-altman.lol website displays sample messages for reference. The script does not include Altman's actual email address.
Systems utilizing 90 percent or more of available RAM will not trigger notifications to the OpenAI executive. Users preferring not to contact Altman can execute the script in test mode using the terminal command bash ram-altman.sh --dry-run to preview functionality without sending messages.
Kay maintains a respectful tone toward Altman, acknowledging the CEO's clarification that his original comments were misrepresented. The developer also praised Altman's recent adoption of the display name 'Ram Altman' on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, which directly inspired the project's nomenclature.
The ram-altman script is available free on GitHub and operates natively on Linux systems. Windows users can run it through WSL or use a PowerShell port that someone has created. The tool does not support macOS, though Kay notes that removing soldered memory from Apple devices would present practical challenges regardless.