Hacker News Reader

Comment by simonw | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, anyone who thinks local AI is going to save them money is likely to be disappointed, at least if they want to run models that are even remotely capable.

Plenty of other reasons to get excited about local AI, but I don't think cost is one of them.

View on HN

Maybe you are using a local model to go after some Millennium Prize problem and you don't want OpenAI to take your work and use it to win the prize for themselves? $15k might be a bargain.

And, yes, I know a current local model wasn't going to solve the Navier-Stokes problem, but I'm just using it as an example where privacy might be valuable.

Agreed, plenty of other reasons to get excited about local AI.

I'll try that argument with my wife next time I want to buy a $15k mac.

It's a bold strategy cotton, lets see if it pays off for em.

It will also reduce your heating bill.

Despite being on a site called Hacker News, we seem to often overlook the simple aspect of wanting local AI hardware to hack (not necessarily in the cybersecurity sense) with. I got my local AI hardware because it's an enjoyable hobby for me.

apparently if you ever point out HN starts for hackernews and thus expect related attitudes you get downvoted by shocked ( what I guess are zoomers and not bots ) that desperately opine the name is a random abberation doesn't mean anything and one should not deviate from our corporate overlods in any manner.

A lot of people commenting on how bad idea buying local hardware for inference is also miss the fact that even in 3 years that hardware gonna cost something.

Might be if RAM prices get much more reasonable its gonna be 1/3 of the price, but it's very much possible its gonna be half or more.

And if you're buing Mac Studio and not some AI-only locked down board it's possible to reuse it for other purposes.

Yes it surprises me too…

On a personal level maybe not yet, but for a medium business upwards it may make sense.

Having no debt and owning in the long run always works out better than a lifetime of renting, if you don’t have to, the massive rent letting these days, is very frustrating at some point don’t you have to draw the line?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com