Where the flower grows: Local LLMs and the case for private AI
15 days ago
- #Local LLMs
- #AI Privacy
- #Digital Sovereignty
- The article discusses the concept of 'air gapped' intelligence, emphasizing privacy and control with local LLMs (Large Language Models).
- Local LLMs offer benefits such as control/sovereignty, peace of mind, audibility, and observability, ensuring data privacy and user ownership.
- The piece critiques the current cloud-based AI models, highlighting their invasive data collection and lack of transparency.
- A private AI device should be trustworthy, observable, and timeless, with no hidden data collection or corporate manipulation.
- Transparency and modularity are key, with open-source code and visible hardware to ensure trust and hackability.
- Hardware features like encryption at rest, TPM/SE chips, kill switches, and Faraday cages are proposed to enhance security.
- The article explores practical architectures for private AI, including home-server LLMs, BYOM API endpoints, and memory vaults.
- The concept of a 'Digital Twin' is introduced, representing a user's digital persona that can interact with AI systems securely.
- The future of AI should avoid dependency, instead acting as scaffolding that users can outgrow as they internalize its benefits.
- The call to action encourages building private, local AI systems to counter the pervasive surveillance of big tech.