The man brought us LLMs and ever more capable models. I don’t know about the critics, but my work life completely changed from Dec 2022 on. Ever since chatgpt was released. I cannot imagine working without LLMs and agents anymore. They make me literally 10-100x more productive, transforming text, generating text, doing research, writing code, documenting systems, doing web search and so much more.
And for that I am forever thankful to Sam Altman and all the people who made this possible.
Computers existed before Steve Jobs made them usable. Sam Altman created a company that created a product that millions of people started to use witin days.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. Sam Altman despite his flaws played a key role in kickstarting the capital war that’s led to the insane investment in infrastructure that’ll carry us to a new age once the hype dies down.
He created and continues to create an atmosphere for innovation inside OpenAI that showed the way for the fast-followers.
He lit a fire under the ass of Google for gods sake.
Whatever he did or didn’t invent, he made a ton of invention possible.
Where to from here is uncertain but without sama maybe ChatGPT didn’t happen the same way - or maybe it crashed and people shrugged. Maybe in the other timeline that leads to another AI winter. But one thing is for certain, without sama the whole thing would’ve been a lot smaller.
At a friend’s birthday last year, I wrote in the space of 8 minutes - then performed - a 3-minute long verse about said friend and their puppy. I didn’t get the verse from ChatGPT. I had it help me find rhyming words that fit the rhythm, had it help me find synonyms, and find punchy ends to sentences.
I made a xylophone iphone app way back in mid 2024 by copy pasting code to Claude and errors from Xcode, just to show off what AI can do. Someone asked to make it support dragging your finger across the screen to play lots of notes really fast - Claude did that in one shot. In mid 2024, 6 months before Claude Code.
I made a sorting hat for my sisters’ kids for Christmas a few weeks ago. I found a voice cloning website, had Claude write some fun dialogue, and vibe coded an app with the generated recordings of the sorting hat voice saying various virtues and Harry Potter house names. The cloned voice was so good, it sounded exactly like the actor in the movie. I loaded the app on my phone and hid a Bluetooth speaker in a Santa hat - tapping a button in the app would play a voice recording from the sorting hat AI voice. The kids unwrapped the hat and it declared itself as the sorting hat. Put the hat on a kid’s head, tap a button, hat talks! With a little sleight of hand, the kids really believed it was the hat talking all by itself. Laughing together with my whole family as the hat declared my cheeky niece “Slytherin!!!” was one of the most humanising things I’ve ever seen.
I’ve made event posters for my Burning Man camp. Zillions of dumb memes for group chats. You always have to do some inpainting or touch it up in an image editor, but it’s worth it for the lulz.
And right now I’m using Claude Code for my startup, ApprovIQ. Dario Amodei was right in a way: 99% of the code was written by Claude.
But sorry, no multi million line vibe coded codebases. For that my friend, you’ll be waiting until after the next AI winter.
The downvotes probably come from the idea that I’m crediting one person. Obviously LLMs were built by many people, but Altman raised the money, pulled the org together, and shipped something that millions were using within days.
> The man brought us LLMs and ever more capable models. ... And for that I am forever thankful to Sam Altman and all the people who made this possible.
Why thank Altman and not thank Joe Biden? He was running the country when these models you praise were released, and they both had about as much real involvement in their actual construction.
The CEO didn't do the work, he shouldn't get all (or even most) of the credit.
I hope Apple will make it a smooth integration. The chatgpt integration in Apple Intelligence is not smooth. Constantly wants user input („confirm you are 13+“ at every request)
Western governments do not want democracy in Iran. They want the son of Shah back in Iran, the Shah whose father tortured and exploited Iranians, and that led to the revolution and the rise of the mullahs. The US and Israel want regime change so Israel can dominate the ME. Just like they replaced Assad in Syria by Jolani, a wanted Al Qaeda terrorist who does not oppose Israel in any way but slaughter kurds and alavites because they are moderate muslims.
The revolts in Iran are backed by US/Israel. They openly brag about it on every channel. They don’t care about Iranian‘s freedoms. They are the same who support every dictator in the region if and only if that dictator accepts Israel‘s dominance.
> Trump's former CIA Director and the largest newspapers of the Israeli media can state explicitly and clearly that the Mossad is all over the protests in Iran, and yet still people will deny it and say only a conspiracy theorist could believe such a crazy tale.
The USA have backed the coup against the democratically elected prime minister Mossadegh, to begin with.
"In 1953, the CIA- and MI6-backed 1953 Iranian coup d'état overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, who had nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Company."
So the claim here is that by backing any coups and revolutions, the US tacitly backed all of them? Ok!
Like: yes, I lay a lot of the responsibility for the nightmare state Iranians live in at the hands of Cold War NATO policymakers, for sure, but I don't think it's all that useful as a positive claim of what happened in the 1970s. The US did not support the Ayatollahs.
> So the claim here is that by backing any coups and revolutions, the US tacitly backed all of them? Ok!
I didn't say that. It's just that Iran already had a democratically elected government. However there is some truth to the claim that you put in my mouth, that is, you can see that pattern quite often in history. Chile is another example but let's focus on Iran.
Israel does seem pretty excited about this and I doubt it is because they suddenly care about people they have killed themselves and a nation they have threatened to destroy.
Iran hasn't threatened to destroy, they have made it their stated mission to "annihilate" Israel. I doubt Israel would have any ill-will towards Iran if Iran didn't first say that about Israel.
Israel and Iran were BFFs right until the revolution and Israel has hundreds of thousands of Persian jews. I'm sure relations will be very quickly amended if the current regime falls.
1. Jolani was propped up by Turkey not Israel, their relations are still tense. E.g. Jolani has been massacring the Druze which are Israel's allies, while Israel-Turkey relations are only getting worse.
Unsure where so many get the idea Israel is excited about an ISIS veterans regime on its border that regularly massacres civilians including on-brand mass rapes, kidnappings, beheadings, cutting hearts out etc
The US had previously imprisoned Jolani and had a 10 million reward on his head until 2024, so, that also doesn't align with your narrative
2. Western governments make sure not to meet the crown prince in a state setting or using high dignities, as to limit their support
3. The Shah government was terrible in some respects but still arguably superior to the current one, in any case hopefully Iranians can find their own new way once they get rid of their current fascist theocracy
4. There is no real evidence that the local revolts are supported by the US or Israel. It is naturally the regime propaganda stance as authoritarian regimes usually turn the blame outwards rather than face their failures (environmental disaster, raging inflation, sanctions, complete regional defeat, unwanted religious laws)
5. Not many dictators in the region historically "accepted Israel's dominance" so I don't think you have many supporting points for your sweeping statements
> Unsure where so many get the idea Israel is excited about an ISIS veterans regime on its border that regularly massacres civilians including on-brand mass rapes, kidnappings, beheadings, cutting hearts out etc
That has been a case of "the enemy of my enemy" as the Al Nusra Islamists had still considered Israel as infidels that need to be eventually be dealt with.
Israel more pressing Islamist threat, Hezbollah, was the focus back then and therefore these organizations were given medical help in turn for agreeing not to kill Druze and to stay away from the Israeli border.
It was quite evident Israel's position as it hasn't tried to fight for Al Nusra when Assad recaptured that area even though it could easily make the Syrian regime forces retreat.
Also, the repeated bombing of the current syrian government forces are probably not due to some outbursting friendship
1) Cry me a river about bloody dictators being deposed, wah wah.
2) Nobody is asking to "accept Israel's dominance", but dropping the "Destruction of Israel" as one of the main goals of the state would be a quite welcome.
The world does not revolve around Israel, and the less bloody dictators it has (theocratic or not) the better.
Why should they? Palestinians have a home. Jordan consists of majority palestinians. Why should they take in Palestinians? Besides Egypt and Jordan are puppet regimes, paid for by the West. They receive billions for weapons annually. One dicatator and another monarch suppressing their people and getting weapons and intelligence in return.
If Israel were to be magically relocated to the moon or mars or 'the sea', region would resume the explosion of local wars, now that common enemy briefly uniting them is gone.
You are partially right, Israel does want to subdue the middle east and Iran stands in the way. However that does not absolve the current Iranian government of being a despicable entity, mostly hated by its own people. I hope the Iranian people choose democracy, limit the Ayatollahs to their holy city in Qom like the Vatican, tell that rascal Shah's son to go fornicate himself and of-course continue putting a necessary check on Israeli expansionism.
Agree - but a lot of the sentiment I hear from my Iranian friends (and recent pro-regime protestors comments) is that they acknowledge they have issues, but they don't want a regime change at the hands of USA and Israel.
I despise the Iranian regime, but knowing what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, I find it quite troubling that people are quite giddy about this as though it's not going to result in many lives lost (many more than what the regime is currently responsible for), and destabilisation of the country.
And given the USA's track record in regime changes, and the issues they have in their own country currently, I don't think the US - nor Israel - have any standing to be carrying out a regime change in another sovereign state.
I find it impossible to see how the broad assertions you have made could possibly be subject to resolution in any way by argument so it would be a waste of time. I suspect whatever counter arguments were produced you'd diss them.
And you think my point was about Western liberalism? That’s what you call destabilising countries? All while massively supporting some of the most aggressive dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, UAE?
Liberalism is (in the name of democracy) attacking every country that opposes Israel (Iran Syria Libya Iraq Venezuela) and remaining silent on every US backed dictatorship that doesnt lift a finger to support Palestine. (Egypt Saudi Arabia UAE Jordan Jolani/isis)
This is speculation, but given how cozy he is with Israel it’s not “nonsense”. And the rest of the post is verifiable, despite it being described as “mostly nonsense”.
Words are cheap and politicians often do much different than they promised. Remember when Trump said no new wars? Remember when he said we were done in Iran after dropping the bombs, and now intervention is looming?
Western policy toward Iran basically boils down to: we're fine with democracy, just not if it threatens US/Israeli regional dominance. The 1953 coup, freezing out Hamas after they won elections, bankrolling the Saudis and Mubarak, it's all pretty consistent. "Democracy promotion" is the talking point; the actual goal is a pliant regional order where Israel stays militarily dominant and Iran either gets weaker or flips to being Western-aligned.
So when you see Reza Pahlavi suddenly getting airtime in Western policy circles, or street protests getting instrumentalized, or the recent conflict framed as a chance to degrade Iranian capabilities—it's not hard to read that as regime-change-by-attrition rather than genuine concern for what Iranians actually want.
---
And since you are too lazy to google yourself, here's some food for thought for you:
1953 COUP & PATTERN OF UNDERCUTTING INCONVENIENT DEMOCRACIES
The coup itself:
- Detailed reconstructions document CIA/MI6 overthrow of elected Mossadegh to restore a pro-Western Shah and protect Western oil interests.[1][2][3][4]
- CIA officially acknowledged its role; mainstream sources frame it as toppling Iran's elected government, followed by decades of US-backed dictatorship.[5][6]
The pattern:
- Once you map 1953 → Hamas 2006 → ongoing Saudi/Egyptian support, scholars synthesize it into the exact logic described: democracy is fine until it threatens US/Israeli primacy.[2][10][11][13]
HAMAS' 2006 ELECTORAL VICTORY & WESTERN RESPONSE
- Hamas won a free, competitive election in 2006; the US and allies then moved to diplomatically and financially isolate the government unless it met stringent conditions.[7][8][9][10]
- Policy analysis shows US-led isolation pushed the Palestinian Authority toward collapse—fitting the claim that "democracy promotion" gets subordinated to Israeli interests once voters pick the "wrong" side.[9][10][7]
- US military and economic aid to Egypt under Mubarak continued for decades despite systematic repression; "democracy assistance" remained marginal compared to security aid.[11]
- Bipartisan US tolerance for Saudi Arabia and Gulf monarchies persists despite their undemocratic character—even after Khashoggi, even during Saudi counter-revolutionary moves against Arab Spring uprisings.[12][13]
THE STRUCTURAL LOGIC: "PLIANT REGIONAL ORDER" + ISRAELI MILITARY DOMINANCE
- Critical analyses argue Washington's overriding priority is stability of a pro-US security architecture and Israel's qualitative military edge; democracy and human rights are secondary, adjustable variables.[13][12]
REZA PAHLAVI, STREET PROTESTS & REGIME-CHANGE-BY-ATTRITION
- Reza Pahlavi is positioned as a pro-Western, pro-Israel opposition figure amplified in Western forums, despite uncertain domestic support.[14][15][16]
- US and allied Iran policy mixes sanctions, information ops, support for exiled media, and military pressure as a long-term weakening strategy—not engagement with any outcome that might produce an independent, nationalist democracy.[17][18][19]
Please don't post like this here. HN is not for political or ideological battle or grand assessments/proclamations about geopolitical history. We also don't want giant walls of copy+pasted material here. We're here to converse curiously and contribute our own original thoughts.
Everyone who participates here needs to observe the guidelines. These ones in particular are relevant.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
"Western governments do not want democracy in Iran" is not the same statement as "Western policy toward Iran basically boils down to: we're fine with democracy, just not if it threatens US/Israeli regional dominance" and neither are supported by citations describing what happened in the 1950s.
> Western governments do not want democracy in Iran.
This is purely speculation, and is not generally true based on statements from Western governments. What I would say is that Western governments want stability in Iran, just like virtually every other nation. If the current leaders in Iran were not sponsoring terrorists across the world, weren't actively pursuing the most dangerous military weapon in existence, and hadn't run their country into the ground, I don't think Western governments would spend much time thinking about Iran or its form of government.
> They want the son of Shah back in Iran, the Shah whose father tortured and exploited Iranians, and that led to the revolution and the rise of the mullahs.
The second part of this is true (the Shah was a poor ruler), but the first does not appear to be true.
> The US and Israel want regime change so Israel can dominate the ME.
I suspect your definition of "dominate the ME" is not very mainstream if you accept this at face value. Iran (along with some other ME nations) has a stated goal of wiping Israel off the map, which Israel strongly disagrees with.
> Just like they replaced Assad in Syria by Jolani, a wanted Al Qaeda terrorist who does not oppose Israel in any way but slaughter kurds and alavites because they are moderate muslims.
How did Western governments replace Assad with Jolani? Do you want the leader of Syria to oppose Israel, or should they attempt to normalize relations with a neighbor? Have you considered that he realizes that he can't win that fight and is attempting to cling to the power he seized during their civil war?
> The revolts in Iran are backed by US/Israel.
Any evidence of this?
> They openly brag about it on every channel.
Any evidence of this?
> They don’t care about Iranian‘s freedoms.
Any evidence of this?
> They are the same who support every dictator in the region if and only if that dictator accepts Israel‘s dominance.
Any evidence of this? Again, Western governments are really looking for stability first, and will accept it if a dictator can provide it based on past behavior.
In short, these are a bunch of highly biased and polarizing statements of opinion, some of which might be backed by a shred of truth but then warped to fit a very specific viewpoint.
>not generally true based on statements from Western governments.
Its wild that someone can say this with a straight face.
>What I would say is that Western governments want stability in Iran, just like virtually every other nation.
While "stability" is being generous, this is more or less true. Western governments want whatever form of government is most beneficial to them, which usually implies some form of "stability". What it does not imply is any form of democracy or liberalism. The last 100+ years in the region demonstrate this, with the British and US supporting undemocratic, sometimes brutal regimes that were beneficial to them.
>The second part of this is true (the Shah was a poor ruler), but the first does not appear to be true.
That is literally one of the easiest claims to verify. 5 seconds google search:
"As Iranian protests grow in size, an unlikely figure is gaining prominence—the son of the country’s reviled shah, who was toppled in the 1979 revolution.
Iranians across the country are chanting slogans in support of Reza Pahlavi, whose father, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, ruled the country for decades."
Just as one example, how does "Iranians across the country are chanting slogans in support of Reza Pahlavi" demonstrate that Western nations want him in power?
And did you miss this in that article: "Few analysts think Pahlavi has a real path to the throne or leadership in Iran."
> What I would say is that Western governments want stability in Iran, just like virtually every other nation.
That’s why the US toppled the democratically elected Mossadegh in the 1950s and installed a puppet regime with the brutal Shah? And when the Iranians started a revolution and sent the dictator into exile the West gave money and weapons to Iraq‘s Saddam Hussain and killed 1 mil Iranians? And put Iran under harsh sanctions for decades under which Iranians suffer deerly?
> If the current leaders in Iran were not sponsoring terrorists across the world,
Global terrorism comes from IS/Al Qaeda, which are Sunnis, originating in Saudi Arabia, not Iran.
And speaking of extraterritorial killings: Read the book „Rise and Kill“ by an Israeli. Israel kills people around the globe extrajudicially like no other country. Israel is accused of genocide. Yet the collective West is silent.
"... there will be plenty of voices around Trump advising him to be careful if he does go down that route. The Trump administration would be careful, because the consequences of regime change would be extremely complex ..."
I pay around 10 euros a month to apple just so I can sync my photos from iphone to mac and ipad. That’s the only reason I need the 2 TB for icloud service. With an app like this I could download and keep copies and get rid of iCloud subscription?
This will let you download all of your photos that already exist on iCloud Photos.
Going forward, you’d want to set up some other way to sync photos you take from your phone to your other devices. I can personally recommend Synology Photos for simplicity[1], or Immich[2] for an open-source (and in my opinion, slightly better) alternative you can run on any hardware, if you’d like to set up an always-on NAS. These are “Apple Photos” or “Google Photos” equivalents that you host yourself.
Alternatively, something like Syncthing[3] is a dead-simple way to sync your photos to various other devices as and when they are online, if you’d prefer to manage your photos in an ordinary file manager.
I’d be remiss not to mention that, for any solution where you move off the cloud to a central storage location of your own, you really must make backups to keep your photos safe. The 3-2-1 rule is a standard recommendation.
NeoVim, Yazi, and Tmux are my go-to tools. When I need AI and Agents, I create multiple instances of Claude Code or Codex. However, I don’t let them interfere with my workflow if I don’t need them.
> and AI Studio is the only serious product for human-in-the-loop SWE
Disagree. I use Claude Code and Codex daily, and I couldn’t be happier. Had started with Cursor, switched to CLI based agents and never looked back. I use WezTerm, tmux, neovim, Zoxide, and create several tabs and panes and run claude code not only for vibe coding, scripting, analysing files, letting it write concepts, texts, documentation. Totally different kind of computing experience. As if I have several assistants 24/7 at my fingertips.
The US is now literally sanctioning UN experts and ICC people if they push too hard on accountability for alleged Israeli war crimes, e.g. Francesca Albanese over her Gaza reports and support for ICC cases. In Germany (and elsewhere) it often doesn’t need formal sanctions: people get disinvited, smeared, or quietly pushed out of jobs if they’re too vocal on Palestine – think Ai Weiwei, Greta Thunberg, Masha Gessen, Ilan Pappé, Ghassan Hage and others running into cancellations, funding cuts, and public delegitimisation instead of explicit legal punishment.
Wow, unbelievable, downvote everything that states the obvious. This platform practically silences any criticism of Israel. Just like any other platform.
Musk increasingly feels like a charlatan selling snake oil. He is great at hype and storytelling, not so great at execution. Big promises, missed timelines, excuses reframed as genius.
He has been promising fully autonomous Teslas since at least 2015 and “level 5” self-driving within a couple of years, yet cars still require human oversight and true autonomy remains elusive.
He said Tesla robotaxis would be on the road by 2020 and then “next year” repeatedly, which never happened.
He promised an affordable $35,000 Model 3 and a cheap family EV, but those never materialized as advertised.
He unveiled the Cybertruck with specific features and price points that did not pan out, and several promised add-ons never appeared.
He set repeated production deadlines for the Tesla Roadster that kept slipping for years.
And his Mars colonization timelines are still nowhere near realistic.
The same cycle keeps repeating, with fans focusing on a few wins while ignoring a long list of missed commitments. At some point it stops being bold vision and starts looking like a confidence game.
And for that I am forever thankful to Sam Altman and all the people who made this possible.
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