@huxley I've been using self-hosted LLMs lately as idea and organization tools - something that can pull together RAG data from different sources and synthesize something "new". I can hand Qwen 3.5 a folder of text files from a story I'm drafting and have a full RP session in that world with its characters, locations, and events. I refuse to use its output directly in my writing, but it's wild how good it is for something running on consumer hardware.

That said, I still feel dirty using it. I'm trying to use fully open models like Apertus, never use commercial LLM/AI services, and self-host everything, but I'm still engaging with a shitty destructive industry. I'm crossing my fingers that the hype cycle dies back enough for major companies to stop throwing money at it, but not so much that open source/self-hosted models stop evolving