Over the past month I’ve been exploring the rapidly evolving world of Large Language Models (LLM). It’s now accessible enough to run a LLM on a Raspberry Pi smarter than the original ChatGPT (November 2022). A modest desktop or laptop supports even smarter AI. It’s also private, offline, unlimited, and registration-free. The technology is improving at breakneck speed, and information is outdated in a matter of months. This article snapshots my practical, hands-on knowledge and experiences — information I wish I had when starting. Keep in mind that I’m a LLM layman, I have no novel insights to share, and it’s likely I’ve misunderstood certain aspects. In a year this article will mostly be a historical footnote, which is simultaneously exciting and scary.
In case you’ve been living under a rock — as an under-the-rock inhabitant myself, welcome! — LLMs are neural networks that underwent a breakthrough in 2022 when trained for conversational “chat.” Through it, users converse with a wickedly creative artificial intelligence indistinguishable from a human, which smashes the Turing test and can be . Interacting with one for the first time is unsettling, a feeling which will last for days. When you bought your most recent home computer, you probably did not expect to have a meaningful conversation with it.