alt Hacker News> it seems really far off from the kind of experience even a basic $20/month subscription gets me.
The $20/month subs are much stronger than the local models you can run, even with how far local models have advanced lately.
The appeal of local models is that the data never leaves your network so you can feel safer putting sensitive content into it. It also feels “free” to use when you’ve already paid for the hardware.
But it doesn’t perform better and if you do the math you’re probably not saving money either. It’s helpful for things that you can’t or don’t want to outsource to a 3rd party.
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Uncensored models are also popular reasons, although it’s more of a niche.
I don't think it is really about "sensitive", but basically about any content you put in. Why would you give corporations your reasoning (data on how you interact with AI, how you "talk" etc.).
All of this is private, but not necessarily sensitive. You never know what is happening with this data. They might say they don't log it or don't sell it, then few years later you'll find it all online or read a book that has a story eerily similar to what you chatted about with GPT a year ago.
> much stronger than the local models you can run
but depending on what you're doing, you may not need the "bleeding edge" performance
Banks, Biglaw, and the Pentagon all do it in the cloud. What could an individual be working on that is so secretive?
It also takes some load off the AI data centers.
IDK if that might be a concern for Apple or their AI partners.
There are a few use cases that are (somewhat) surprisingly unsuited for cloud providers:
- translations: cloud providers can bowdlerize (censor) bad words/content; also, if you want to do a translation for personal use of copyrighted materials, cloud providers may block it
- image generation: generating drawings with a style that even just resembles a copyrighted one (ie. Disney) may be blocked by cloud providers - for example, generating old cartoons style with GPT may not be possible.