Luke Farritor

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Luke Farritor
Luke Farritor (AI Tinkerers SF, October 2023) -2.jpg
Luke Farritor (2023)
Education University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Occupation Software engineer
Father Shane Farritor

Luke Farritor (born 2001/2002) [1] is an American software engineer who is currently serving at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). [2] [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Luke is the son of Shane Farritor, a University of Nebraska–Lincoln professor from Ravenna, Nebraska. [4] Luke interned at SpaceX in 2023. [5] That year, he won a $40,000 prize from the Vesuvius Challenge for using artificial intelligence to uncover ten letters from one of the Herculaneum Papyri scrolls. [6] [7] Farritor's AI program segmented images of the carbonized scroll into 100 pixels by 100 pixels to determine the characters written in ink. [8] [5] [9] In February 2024, Farritor and two other competitors he had teamed up with won the $700,000 grand prize for revealing more than 2,000 additional characters. [10] [11]

Farritor studied computer science at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, before dropping out to become a Thiel Fellow in 2024. [12] [13]

Career

In 2025, Farritor joined Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. He is among a group of 19–24 year olds at the agency. [14] Farritor currently holds a General Services Administration (GSA) email and A-suite level clearance, with access to all GSA physical spaces and IT systems, according to Wired . [14] He is also an executive engineer in the office of the secretary of Health and Human Services. [1] CNN reported on February 6, 2025 that Energy Secretary Chris Wright had that day granted Farritor access to the department's computer systems. [15] In this position, Farritor manually vetoed payments to the HIV/AIDS relief program PEPFAR, even after some payments had been approved by White House officials. [16]

References

  1. 1 2 Swan, Jonathan; Schleifer, Theodore; Haberman, Maggie; Conger, Kate; Mac, Ryan; Ngo, Madeleine (February 3, 2025). "Inside Musk's Aggressive Incursion Into the Federal Government". The New York Times . Retrieved February 4, 2025.
  2. ↑ "Farritor named co-winner of $700,000 prize for ID'ing scroll passages | Nebraska Today". news.unl.edu. Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  3. ↑ "Musk visits and asserts growing influence at GSA". Nextgov.com. January 30, 2025. Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  4. ↑ White, Steve (February 5, 2025). "Nebraska tech prodigy reportedly joins Elon Musk's DOGE project". Nebraska Television Network . Retrieved February 17, 2025.
  5. 1 2 Steinberg, Julia. "The 22-Year-Old Who Unlocked the Secrets of Ancient Rome". The Free Press . Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  6. ↑ Henshall, Will (October 21, 2023). "Inside the AI-Powered Race to Decode Ancient Roman Scrolls". TIME. Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  7. ↑ Wade, Nicholas (October 12, 2023). "Scrolls That Survived Vesuvius Divulge Their First Word". The New York Times . Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  8. ↑ "First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll by 21yo computer science student". scrollprize.org. Vesuvius Challenge. October 12, 2023. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  9. ↑ Sample, Ian (October 12, 2023). "Researchers use AI to read word on ancient scroll burned by Vesuvius". The Guardian. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  10. ↑ "Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll!". scrollprize.org. Vesuvius Challenge. February 5, 2024. Retrieved February 12, 2025.
  11. ↑ Montgomery, David (October 15, 2024). "How AI is revealing lost secrets of the Roman Empire". National Geographic . Retrieved February 12, 2025.
  12. ↑ Dunker, Chris (February 5, 2024). "UNL student shares grand prize for translating scroll buried at Pompeii". JournalStar.com. Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  13. ↑ "Thiel Foundation Announces Next Thiel Fellow Class". Archived from the original on November 29, 2024. Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  14. 1 2 Elliott, Vittoria. "The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk's Government Takeover". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028 . Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  15. ↑ Nilsen, Ella (February 6, 2025). "Trump energy secretary allowed 23-year-old DOGE rep to access IT systems over objections from general counsel". CNN.
  16. ↑ Bai, Matt (February 24, 2025). "The blinding contempt of the DOGE bros". The Washington Post.
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