AI is a new and exciting tool that can help you in many ways!

A good way to start is to have it run locally on your own PC and have it run independently from online services.

Local chatbot

This is a more straightforward way to getting started with local AI. The following is a list of how I've been running one.

Requirements:

• koboldcpp (This software sets up a local server/instance for your AI to run on)
• ComfyTavern (This is a frontend software, i.e. It gives you an interface to manage your koboldcpp session in)
• An LLM (Typically in .gguf format, huggingface is a good place to get them from)
• Character cards (Typically in .json format, essentially character profiles which your LLM will simulate)
https://rentry.org/lmg-lazy-getting-started-guide

Local diffusion

This is essentially image generation.

Setting up is a bit harder, especially for me since it's more suited for Nvidia cards while I currently use AMD cards.

I will get back to this when I can/feel like it but the main client that most people (Including big companies) use is ComfyUI: https://github.com/comfyanonymous/ComfyUI

Here is a good resource to help you get set up, a lot better than I could explain: https://rentry.org/ldg-lazy-getting-started-guide

Generating images locally opens up more custom options for you and gives you a greater degree of control: I especially like to run my own drawings through it to see what the machine can do with them.