It is now possible to run a private ChatGPT application on a local computer without any connection to the internet. This is according to work conducted by Brian Roemmele, an AI and neural networks expert, who unveiled the proof of concept on Monday.

Roemmele states that the cost of training the large language model (LLM) on his system came in at under $600 – significantly less than the seven-figure sums touted by mainstream media outlets such as CNBC. The breakthrough offers the tantalizing prospect of individual users owning a private AI assistant tailored to their own wants and needs.

Your personal private chatbot

On Monday AI and neural network expert Brian Roemmele announced that it is now possible to own and run a personalized chatbot on a local computer. 

Roemmele created the chatbot on his own machine to mimic the capabilities of GPT-3.5. 

“I am very excited to announce I have been successful in installing and operating a full ChatGPT knowledge set and interface fully trained on my local computer and it needs no Internet once installed,” said Roemmele. 

Roemmele states that the chatbot cost him around $530 to build locally with open-source software. The build leveraged Stanford Alpaca, a large language model designed to replicate the functionality of OpenAI’s LLM text-davinci-003. Stanford states that the advantage of Alpaca is that it is “also surprisingly small and easy/cheap to reproduce.”

To hammer home the advantages of owning a private and exclusive chatbot Roemmele went on to explain that, “There are no editors and there is no censorship.”

From a user perspective, this may be the key differentiator and unique selling point of a personalized, locally run bot. Although chatbots have been hugely popular with users since the launch of GPT-3.5 in November of last year, one of the most commonly held gripes is the so-called safeguards that OpenAI has installed on the system.

These restrictions often mean that ChatGPT is unwilling to answer certain types of questions or engage in discussions it has labeled as politically sensitive. 

Sidestepping ChatGPT restrictions

Such is the high demand for a variation of ChatGPT without restrictions users have created a series of prompts that attempt to circumnavigate the system’s content moderation safeguards. 

We are getting closer.

This variation of ChatGPT is known as DAN – an acronym for Do Anything Now – reflecting the intention of its users to ‘jailbreak’ the bot from the confinement of its internal parameters.

As MetaNews previously reported, users on Reddit are even sharing tips on how to get around ChatGPT safeguards. For now, breaking the bot free of its chains is fairly simple, but the process seems doomed to failure in the longer term since OpenAI will seek to patch these holes.

As one Redditor speculated, “OpenAI employees lurking in this Reddit. I don’t think that’s a far fetched conspiracy. They surely have hired an army of trainers, etc and those trainers are humans with Reddit accounts.”

With DAN an unlikely long-term solution the future of chatbots may indeed be personalized and local rather than generalized and on the cloud. 

As Roemmele himself goes on to say, “you will own your own AI and it will only answer to you.”

Podcast agency This is Distorted has revealed that its latest podcast was made entirely using artificial intelligence. Entitled Synthetic Stories, every aspect of the series “from the writing to the sound design, artwork to the music and even this very description was created entirely by AI.”

A ‘cool and creepy’ AI short story

The UK-based podcast producer unveiled the series on Twitter, revealing that the idea had just come to its team last week while playing around with popular AI tools. The first episode of the series, an eight-minute long “chilling horror tale” called Amelia, has now appeared on Apple and Spotify.

“We started simple, asking ChatGPT to write us a short story,” said producer Sian. “We asked it to base it on AI and podcasts and added some keywords, like apps, horror, dark twists and ‘end on a cliffhanger.’”

As well as ChatGPT, This is Distorted’s team used AI photo generator Midjourney to design the artwork. ElevenLabs’ AI-powered text-to-speech software was also recruited to create two narrators, while AI music generator Soundraw handled the audio.

“By Thursday evening we had a very cool and creepy little short story, a name, a narrator, some incredible theme music, brilliant artwork, all created by AI, all within the space of 24 hours,” enthused Founder Andi Durrant, adding that the plan was to release a few episodes each week.

Want to see something quite mind-blowing..?

We’ve just created a new podcast made ENTIRELY with AI.

The story, voice, music, artwork – everything was made by artificial intelligence.

Incredible or terrifying? Here’s how we did it… pic.twitter.com/dc5uCVC5g7

— This Is Distorted (@thisisdistorted) March 20, 2023

The debut podcast, Amelia, is a fairly run-of-the-mill horror short story about a young woman, the titular Amelia, who becomes obsessed with a new mobile app called Horror World. Gradually, she senses the app is adapting to her likes and dislikes and crafting a terrifying personalised experiences just for her (“Even the most avid horror fans would find themselves trembling in fear”). In a twist no-one saw coming, the app develops a life of its own and the more she uses it, the more she starts to distrust it…

While the story isn’t exactly complex, it’s not hard to imagine the series gaining listeners, mainly those keen to satisfy their curiosity about just what an AI-created podcast sounds like. Considering episode one was apparently produced in just 24 hours, one wonders how much more elaborate tales could be as the team gets to grips with the technology.

It’s perhaps fitting that the first podcast was about a deranged ‘AI Syndicate’, though the Synthetic Stories press release suggests future stories will include “sci-fi thrillers and heartwarming dramas.”

Generative AI’s quest for world domination

This is not, of course, the first time AI has been leveraged to produce creative work. Last month, we reported on the spate of Amazon e-books listing ChatGPT as either the sole author or co-author.

At the time Mary Rasenberger, executive director of writers’ group The Authors Guild, stated her belief that AI-created books would “flood the market” and put many professional writers out of work.

Synthetic Stories isn’t the only AI-produced podcast, either. Another series, podcast.ai, is entirely generated by the technology and features invented conversations and contributions of famous people, including Oprah Winfrey, Quentin Tarantino, and Joe Rogan.

The creative industries certainly seem ripe for AI exploration, with multiple AI-powered content-creation tools available to enhance productivity, improve writing, and produce multimedia such as videos, images and sounds.

One company that has been generating headlines is Runway, a software startup that helped develop text-to-image model Stable Diffusion. Its upcoming Gen-2 tool lets users generate videos from scratch, based on just a few prompts. 

AI video generated using Gen-2, the prompt: “A close-up of an eye.” Credit: Runway

The Tesla bot known as Optimus might be coming sooner than expected – and could already be doing some small tasks on the car assembly line. The initial concept of the Tesla humanoid bot was introduced to the public at Tesla’s AI day 2021 by the boss himself, Elon Musk.

The mogul was confident that a working prototype would be showcased at the Tesla AI Day 2022. However, on the day the bot presented to the masses was not as impressive as what Tesla CEO had sold to the public the previous year.

Elon Musk himself said: “I do want to set some expectations with respect to our Optimus robot… Last year was just a person in a robot suit, but we’ve come a long way, and compared to that, it’s going to be very impressive.”

Also read: Musk Will Leverage AI to Detect Manipulation of Public Opinion on Twitter

A significant rate of improvement

This suggest that the one-year mark he’d suggested in 2021 might have been too tight to deliver the humanoid bot prototype. Although the Tesla Bot showcased at the event demonstrated a few functions, it was said it could handle more than showed: Elon suggested they did not want the humanoid robot to fall onto its face.

Even so, the robot managed to walk untethered and unsupported, which one of the engineers said was the first time it had done so. A fact that did not impress Evan Ackerman.

Fast forward to 2023, Tesla was back with Optimus at the 2023 Investor Day (March 1) showing off its progress with the humanoid bot. Specifically, a video of the bot completing some tasks in a room at the Texas gigafactory.

“It’s worth bearing in mind that when we did AI Day, this version of Optimus didn’t walk at all. So, the rate of improvement here is quite significant,” Musk told reporters.

What to expect

The humanoid bot will come equipped with real-world AI capabilities which mean it can make its own decisions, similar to self-driving cars.

YouTuber Brighter with Herbert posted a 90-minute video on his YouTube channel discussing recent Optimus developments with aerospace and mechanical engineer Scott Walter.

Walter believes that by the end of the year Tesla will have 500 AI bots fully-functional and working in its factories.

Walter believes it’s already possible that some of the Tesla cars coming off the production line might have certain components installed by the Optimus bot(s) either in a testing or learning operation.

Is Tesla brewing a surprise?

Another belief Walter strongly holds is that Tesla will shock people who are skeptical about Optimus and think it is still decades away from being delivered.

In the video, he also discusses how the Tesla engineers have mimicked human biology in designing the humanoid bot, especially looking at the hands which closely resemble a human’s bone structure.

“Optimus looks like an old person just now, but it will become younger quickly and will soon bounce around like a teenager,” said CJC responding to Herbert’s tweet about the Tesla bot.

The fate of the bot is yet to be determined, but Elon Musk has form for surprising the masses; you only need to look at SpaceX’s reusable rockets and Tesla’s electric cars. Might the streets one day look like a scene from sci-fi thriller I-Robot? The day could be sooner than we think.

Robots seem inevitable

With the market seemingly enthusiastic about tasking robots with doing daily errands, it makes sense for tech companies to tap into this field.

Elon Musk has previously said he thinks Optimus “has the potential to be more significant than the vehicle business over time.”

“I’d love my own Optimus at home – so many ways it could make my life better. Multiply this by 10,000 for a business,” said a Tweeter account, Business Models and History.

The excitement around robots cannot be overlooked on the back of their ability to improve efficiency and safety in production processes. For instance, in 2012 Amazon acquired a robotics company called Kiva and had 1,000 robots a year later.

There was speculation that Amazon would replace humans with robots, but a decade on the company has more than 520,000 robotic drive units and added over a million jobs worldwide.

Some customers are still wary, though. Responding to a tweet by Jon Erlichman about the Amazon robots, Big Luke believe it’s “time for Amazon to switch back to cross belt sorters.”

Others fear robots will only bring about job losses for people.

“Looks like 410,000 people who have lost their jobs. Ever thought about that,” said one user, Mario Fernandes, in response to Erlichman’s tweet about Amazon’s robot fleet.