I’m not here to argue for or against LLMs in general, but self-hostable AI is a thing. Actually open AI is a thing.
A blanket statement saying about AI as a whole technology being good for fascism is about as useful as saying “roads are good for fascism” (they’re great for troop movement after all).
Sorry, but I think the point about local AI not necessarily being evil is the tangent here.
The OP is about motherboard shortages, which is being driven by the big AI companies and is making hardware unaffordable for normal users
The top level reply to that is about how that’s bad because it removes the ability for people to be in control of their own computing
Then someone comes in, saying “yeah, but you can host your own AI so that it’s not evil so not all AI is bad”
Then someone points out that you can only host your AI if you can afford the hardware to do so which, as the OP and the comment you replied to pointed out, is getting really hard to do.
if you did not understand the comment from above it’s fine but splitting hairs like you are doing is silly (everybody knows it’s not 100 % of AI is 100% evil)…
your comment is exactly the same as when people say “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”… yes, we all know guns are not autonomously killing people, the point is that guns, as a tool, are remarkably good at doing something we do not want, which is to kill people
Not to go on a separate tangent, but that’s the entire point of guns. They are supposed to kill. That’s not meant to be some crazy conservative defense of them or opposition to regulating them. Just pointing out something that seems to get lost in conversations.
Correct… so when I tell you “guns DON’T kill people, people kill people” you are right to assume and I am just an idiot trying to jingle keys in front of you to distract you from the fact that guns do in fact kill people.
I’ve looked into self-hosted AI and decided it’s not worth the cost - both in terms of hardware and energy - when compared to the relative value to be gotten out of it. YMMV.
The models you can run on consumer hardware are still nowhere near the stuff that runs in corporate data centers. To stick with your metaphor, its like running a little steam engine at home while the big guys get to operate nuclear reactors…
You can get pretty far with a stack of 5090s and llama.cpp with split mode graph (or so I’ve heard, I’ve never tried), or AMD’s unified memory CPU thing.
It’s not as good as data centre grade stuff, but it’s not nothing either.
The US government is already setting down the legal framework to make self hostable AI ilegal so good luck with that. Also self hostable AI is still being trained on stolen material so still fascist.
I’m not here to argue for or against LLMs in general, but self-hostable AI is a thing. Actually open AI is a thing.
A blanket statement saying about AI as a whole technology being good for fascism is about as useful as saying “roads are good for fascism” (they’re great for troop movement after all).
You can’t self host anything when the hardware is no longer affordable.
I recently saw a Hacker News article on people running some Deepseek V4 Flash variant on macOS, which is a surprisingly capable model for its size
Or available. Companies have pre-sold years worth of inventory to AI companies.
You see hot that’s tangential to what you’re replying to?
Your point is completely valid, but in another discussion.
Sorry, but I think the point about local AI not necessarily being evil is the tangent here.
The OP is about motherboard shortages, which is being driven by the big AI companies and is making hardware unaffordable for normal users
The top level reply to that is about how that’s bad because it removes the ability for people to be in control of their own computing
Then someone comes in, saying “yeah, but you can host your own AI so that it’s not evil so not all AI is bad”
Then someone points out that you can only host your AI if you can afford the hardware to do so which, as the OP and the comment you replied to pointed out, is getting really hard to do.
Only when you ignore what was literally the first premise and conclusion.
if you did not understand the comment from above it’s fine but splitting hairs like you are doing is silly (everybody knows it’s not 100 % of AI is 100% evil)…
your comment is exactly the same as when people say “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”… yes, we all know guns are not autonomously killing people, the point is that guns, as a tool, are remarkably good at doing something we do not want, which is to kill people
Not to go on a separate tangent, but that’s the entire point of guns. They are supposed to kill. That’s not meant to be some crazy conservative defense of them or opposition to regulating them. Just pointing out something that seems to get lost in conversations.
Correct… so when I tell you “guns DON’T kill people, people kill people” you are right to assume and I am just an idiot trying to jingle keys in front of you to distract you from the fact that guns do in fact kill people.
Corps want to privatize roads and make them all toll roads too
They are succeeding in my area.
Roads were also useful for random citizens and people who happened to be in the area.
LLMs are overwhelmingly more useful to bad actors.
I’ve looked into self-hosted AI and decided it’s not worth the cost - both in terms of hardware and energy - when compared to the relative value to be gotten out of it. YMMV.
Same, pretty much. It is possible though, which makes LLMs a more democratic technology than, say, nuclear reactors.
The models you can run on consumer hardware are still nowhere near the stuff that runs in corporate data centers. To stick with your metaphor, its like running a little steam engine at home while the big guys get to operate nuclear reactors…
You can get pretty far with a stack of 5090s and llama.cpp with split mode graph (or so I’ve heard, I’ve never tried), or AMD’s unified memory CPU thing.
It’s not as good as data centre grade stuff, but it’s not nothing either.
The US government is already setting down the legal framework to make self hostable AI ilegal so good luck with that. Also self hostable AI is still being trained on stolen material so still fascist.
Not the best comparison given the interstate highways systems’ history of disproportionately targeting Black and Latino communities.
That’s kinda my point. Roads are a useful technology, but they can be used by fascists.