Introduction Link to heading

It’s January 2024. Do you still know what is real? Do you know if this blog post is real? Or if it was generated by AI? I know at this point it is a trope, the “things ain’t what they appear to be no more” trope, where maybe we will need to start throwing in spelling errors and imperfections so that we can signal that the thing you are reading was indeed written by a human.

Lucky for you, I am just bad at spelling and a fast typist, so you will know. And I use VSCode and Markdown, so I don’t even have them new-fangled spell checks, AKA AI 1.0!

Jokes aside though, I am excited to talk about some things in this article that you will possibly find useful. I wanted to write on self-hosting and running your own LLM!

What is an AI, and how sexy is our future? Link to heading

AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there’ll be great companies. - Sam Altman

You’ve probably heard of Sam Altman. He’s the guy behind ChatGPT, OpenAI, and that thing that is most for sure going to change everything. It is going to get you. And Sam is our prophet, lovingly preaching about our demise caused by his company.

An Evil AI that is coming to get you is imaged here Thanks Dall-E from Open-AI for this disturbing image.

I mean he is even calling for regulation, and is pushing for limits to be placed on who and what AIs can be made. He is there for us.

Or, maybe, perhaps, Sam, our boy, our prophet… Is just a con man for corporate America.

Don’t get me wrong. LLMs, and specifically the technology under the hood, Neural Networks, are amazing. So amazing in fact that I believe that the “AI” revolution that is starting right now is on par with the industrial revolution in scale. A paradigm shift in tech that will change all of our lives for incredible good.

But like the tools of the past, AI is just a tool. It isn’t self-aware (yet) and it isn’t capable of taking your job (yet). It would be foolish to think that such a change wouldn’t change fundamentally the landscape of the workplace. The car replaced the horse. Even if it took a few decades.

So what is an AI? Well, let’s let AI tell us.

AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, which refers to the development and implementation of computer systems or machines that can perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as recognizing speech, understanding natural language, solving complex problems, and learning from experience. AI technologies use various methods like machine learning, deep learning, neural networks, and natural language processing to analyze data and make decisions with minimal human intervention.

The goal of AI is to create intelligent machines that can think, learn, and adapt like humans do, allowing them to carry out tasks more efficiently, accurately, and effectively. Some common applications of AI include virtual assistants, self-driving cars, chatbots, recommendation systems, and medical diagnosis tools.

Spooky. See, it’s going to take over our jobs.

Or, let’s break down what it said. AI is a machine method of dynamic automation to make our lives easier. That means that we can work on different things, or free out our time. Why is this not spooky? Well, the hoe replaced the stone, the plow the hoe, the John Deere 2633 the ox-driven plow, which made food so cheap we can now watch YouTube and read blogs rather than spending all our spare energy on running a farm.

So why did Sam Altman prophesize the end of the world? One word: Marketing.

The end of the world and the word “AI” SELLS. I mean, hand over fist, Sam Altman’s various AI investments are making so much money, and this is related to his marketing campaign. His call for regulation? Tale as old as time. He wants the government to regulate the up-and-comers now that OpenAI is the king. He wants to be a monopoly. Like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and every other mega corp that the US calls their own.

The end of the world and the word “AI” SELLS. I mean, hand over fist, Sam Altman’s various AI investments are making SO MUCH MONEY, and this is related to his marketing campaign. His call for regulation? Tale as old as time. he wants the government to regulate the up and comers now that OpenAI is the king. He wants to be a monopoly. Like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and every other mega corp that the US calls their own.

AI, despite the grifters, is a BIG deal though. While Sam Altman wows us with marketing (and every other Major company as they seek to monitize this), AI is really offering us a cool future.

A future where:

  • Your kids will receive learning plans tailored for them, that match their unique way of learning.
  • Your family has access to legal, medical, and technical advice and knowledge, despite their economic circumstances
  • You can learn anything with the assisntace of Large Language Models (LLMs)
  • Power structures will change how we interact with them, bridging gaps of inequality and leveling the playing field

It’s a future of democratization, and a future of hope. AI offers a cool opportunity where we can spread our individual capacity to that of human knowledge. As a curious being living on this earth, i am so excited!

And you can experience this now by hosting a LLM or Visual model.

Running your own Link to heading

Right now, there is a barrier of entry. Hardware is a big part of it. But I am currently rocking the i7 Z13 Tablet with a Laptop 3050 and 16 GB RAM, and it can handle these models well enough. You can find hardware similar to this in the $500-$1000 range. There are also options such as a pie or microcomputer with a Google Coral AI dongle that you can use in a pinch. If you are interested, let me know.

But for the base models, let me BLOW your mind.

  1. Google “LM Studio”
  2. Install LM Studio, located here if you are wondering if you are in the right area: LM Studio
  3. Open it after installing
  4. Select a model. I would suggest LLAMA 2 (you can find this on the home page of the app when it opens)
  5. Go to chat
  6. Ask it to “Please write me 300 words on the amazing life of birds”
  7. Be in awe that you can now run this without the internet.

And that’s it. Go try it! I’ll put on my substack more details and pictures. :)