RAM-Altman reports unused RAM on your machine, one email a day

Developer IainKay published ram-altman, a bash script that emails OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at most once a day whenever a Linux machine has more than 10% of its RAM available, responding to Altman's remark on the Cheeky Pint podcast that it is "quite terrible to have everybody have a bunch of the world's limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer" and that personal RAM is used "maybe 5% of the time." The script computes used memory as MemTotal minus MemAvailable, rotates 8 subject lines, 10 messages and 6 sign-offs, logs samples to CSV, and ships with 14 tests; it requires Linux, bash and a sendmail, msmtp or mail command, and on kernels older than 3.14 without MemAvailable it estimates availability from free memory plus reclaimable cache.

A bash script that writes to Sam Altman once a day to report the RAM he missed. Read the sample emails at ram-altman.lol https://ram-altman.lol , no install needed. There is RAM in your computer. Right now. Just sitting there, in a personal computer, being personal. You may have thought of this as "a computer working normally". On a recent episode of Cheeky Pint https://gizmodo.com/sam-altman-youre-completely-right-about-ram-im-sorry-for-the-confusion-heres-what-happened-2000835208 , the CEO of OpenAI offered another view: "From a global allocation perspective, actually, it's quite terrible to have everybody have a bunch of the world's limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer" — Sam Altman That RAM, he added, is "being used maybe 5% of the time" https://www.xda-developers.com/sam-altman-says-its-quite-terrible-that-people-have-ram-in-their-pcs-during-a-shortage/ . Which raised an obvious question for a certain kind of person: surely someone should be monitoring this? So we wrote a script. If your machine has more than 10% of its RAM available, it sends one email a day to let Sam know. It seemed only fair. He can't fix the problem if nobody tells him where the RAM is. - Tracks total, used and available RAM, plus your standing with the global allocation authorities - Handles page cache correctly, which already puts it ahead of most arguments about RAM - Sends at most one email per day, because we're hoarders, not animals - Rotates 8 subject lines, 10 messages and 6 sign-offs, so the joke gets old at a carefully managed pace - Logs every sample to CSV for when the auditors arrive - Ships with 14 tests, more than the DRAM market has had sensible outcomes - Is written in bash, as an Electron version would have solved the problem by using all the RAM Subject: You missed a spot Hi Sam, Please don't be alarmed, but there is 8.6 GiB of RAM on my desk that isn't in a data centre. That's 56.2% of what's installed here, and as far as I can tell it has no plans today. Hoarding responsibly, A concerned RAM owner -- Sent automatically, at most once a day, by a small script on one PC. Reply if you'd like it to stop. The figures are real. They come from your machine. That's the worrying part. used = MemTotal - MemAvailable MemAvailable is the kernel's own estimate of how much memory programs could claim without swapping. Free RAM counts as available. So does cache the kernel can reclaim. tmpfs and shared memory don't, because they can't simply be handed back. Every sysadmin has spent years explaining that Linux didn't eat your RAM https://www.linuxatemyram.com/ and that free RAM is wasted RAM. It took decades for someone important to agree with the second part, and he'd like it shipped to him. Strictly speaking, the page cache is doing useful work, so counting it as available is a generous concession to the other side. Think of it as a plea bargain. On kernels older than 3.14, which have no MemAvailable , the script estimates it from free memory plus reclaimable cache. If you're on one of those, your RAM may be safe. Nobody's coming for that. You'll need Linux, bash, and a working sendmail , msmtp or mail command. Your RAM is assumed. git clone https://github.com/IainKay/ram-altman.git cd ram-altman chmod +x ram-altman.sh test-ram-altman.sh ./ram-altman.sh --status see the evidence against you ./ram-altman.sh --dry-run preview an email without sending it Example output, from a simulated machine that has confessed to everything: Total: 15.3 GiB Used: 6.7 GiB Available: 8.6 GiB 56.2% Free: 0.3 GiB Cache: 8.2 GiB To run it for real, add this to your crontab with crontab -e : RAM ALTMAN TO=recipient@example.com RAM ALTMAN FROM=you@example.com RAM ALTMAN FROM NAME=Your Name /5 /path/to/ram-altman.sh It samples every five minutes and emails at most once a day. If a send fails, it tries again on the next run, because this message matters. | Setting | What it does | Default | |---|---|---| | RAM ALTMAN TO | Who receives the bad news | Required | | RAM ALTMAN FROM | A real address you can send from | Required | | RAM ALTMAN FROM NAME | Your name, or your nom de RAM | Optional | | RAM ALTMAN THRESHOLD | Email when available RAM is above this percentage whole number | 10 | | RAM ALTMAN STATE DIR | Where the log and state files live | ~/.local/state/ram-altman | Let it run for a while, then find out how your machine compares: awk -F, 'NR 1 { used += $3; total += $2 } END { if total printf "Your RAM in use: %.1f%% the claim: maybe 5%% \n", used 100 / total }' \ ~/.local/state/ram-altman/usage.csv Yes, share of memory in use isn't the same thing as share of time spent in use. If you came here to say that, welcome to Hacker News. We're glad you're here. One email a day from one person is a joke. Ten thousand of them is a denial-of-service attack with better material. - --dry-run is the best way to enjoy this. It costs nothing and all the jokes are there. - This repo doesn't ship with anyone's email address, and please don't add one. - Use your own real address. No spoofing, and no running it across your server fleet. - If anyone asks you to stop, stop. The footer of every email promises this, so keep the promise. You can also point it at someone who will enjoy it, like the friend who has been waiting for DDR5 prices to come down. Does this help with the DRAM shortage? No. Is this a serious tool? The memory accounting is. The correspondence isn't. Does it work on macOS? No, it reads /proc/meminfo . On the other hand, your RAM is probably soldered down, which makes you the hardest target in the global allocation programme. Why is the threshold 10%? Below that, your machine has suffered enough. Does running this use RAM? Briefly. It's then returned to the global pool, which is more than can be said for the rest of us. Can I run the tests without emailing anyone? Yes. ./test-ram-altman.sh uses simulated memory and a fake sendmail . No inboxes are harmed. Can I see it without installing anything? Yes. ram-altman.lol https://ram-altman.lol cycles through the real emails, with sample figures. What should I do with all this RAM? Open another browser tab. You've still got time. Altman has since said the remarks were taken out of context https://gizmodo.com/sam-altman-youre-completely-right-about-ram-im-sorry-for-the-confusion-heres-what-happened-2000835208 , writing: "i actually do want the world to have tons of memory and people to put as much as they want in their computers" He followed up https://www.gadgetreview.com/sam-altman-says-he-wants-you-to-have-even-more-ram-not-less-changes-name-to-ram-altman with "i want you to have so much ram" and "lets build more", and briefly changed his display name on X to Ram Altman, which is objectively excellent and is where this project gets its name. The original remarks came up in a discussion of running AI models locally https://www.engadget.com/2303266/sam-altman-says-its-terrible-dram-computer/ , and the utilization argument is a real one: servers really are busier than your desktop. We just think it's funnier to reply with cron. Besides, if he wants you to have so much RAM, then this script isn't a complaint at all. It's a daily progress report. Free as in unallocated.