LocalGhost Manifesto: Local-first AI before the defaults ship

I wrote this over the holidays because I couldn't shake the feeling that we have a narrow window before Apple/Google ship "local" AI that's local in marketing only.

The manifesto covers the philosophical case (cypherpunk roots, enshittification, architectural immunity), but the real urgency is in the companion piece: https://www.localghost.ai/inflection

The TL;DR: personal AI is the final extraction layer — not just what you search for, but how you think. If that data flows to central servers by default, the capture is complete.

Hardware is commoditizing (sub-$200 NPU boards by mid-2026), but the software defaults are being set now.

Full honesty: LocalGhost is a vision, not a product. No working software yet, just architecture and this site. The Freehold Directory is real though — a /.well-known/freehold.json standard for local-first projects to declare their principles and get discovered.

If someone builds this faster and better, great. The goal is that the alternative exists.