My takeaway is that training an LLM is the biggest energy sink, and after that it’s maintaining the data centers they live in, but when it comes to generative AI itself, prompts aren’t completely innocent either.
So, you’re right, energy is being wasted on silly prompts, particularly when you compare it to other AI types than generative.
But the biggest culprit is in the training and maintaining of the LLMs in the first place.
I don’t know, I personally feel like I have a finite amount of rage, I’d rather write an angry post on a blog about the topic than yell at some rando on a forum.
Yep. I use mine exclusively for code I’m going to open-source anyway and work stuff. And never for anything critical. I treat it like an intern. You still have to review their work…
The smallest Modells that I run on my PC take about 6-8 GB of VRAM and would be very slow if I ran them purely with my CPU.
So it is unlikely that you Phone has enough RAM and enough Cores to run a decent LLM smootly.
If you still want to use selfhosted AI with you phone, selfhost the modell on your PC:
Install Ollama and OpenWebUI in a docker container (guides can be found on the internet)
Make sure they use your GPU (Some AMD Cards require an HSA override Flag to work
Make sure the docker container is secure (Blocking the Port for comunication outside of your network should work fine as long as you only use the AI Modell at home)
Get youself an openwight modell (I recomend llama 3.1 for 8 GB of VRAM and Phi4 if you got more or have enough RAM)
Type the IP-Adress and Port into the browser on your phone.
You now can use selfhosted AI with your phone and an internet connection.
Gemma 3 4b is probably a good model to use. 1b if you can’t run it or it’s too slow.
I wouldn’t rely on it for therapy though. Maybe it could be useful as a tool, but LLMs are not people, and they’re not even really intelligent, which I think is necessary for therapy.
Goddamn you guys are the most paranoid people I’ve ever witnessed. What in the world do you think mega corps are going to do to me for babbling incoherent nonsense to ChatGPT?
No, it’s not a substitute for a real therapist. But therapy is goddamn expensive and sometimes you just need to vent about something and you don’t necessarily have someone to vent to. It doesn’t yield anything useful, but it can help a bit mentally do to do.
Goddamn you guys are the most paranoid people I’ve ever witnessed. What in the world do you think mega corps are going to do to me for sharing incoherent nonsense to Facebook?
You, 10-20 years ago. I heard these arguments from people in the early days, well before Facebook blew up or Cambridge Analytica was a name any normies knew.
This isn’t the early 00s anymore where we can pretend that every big corp isn’t vacuuming up every shred of data they can. Add on the fascistic government taking shape in the US and the general trend towards right leaning parties gaining power in governments across the world, and you’d have to be completely naive to not see the issues with using a ‘therapist’ that will save every datapoint to its training and could be mined to use against you or willingly handed over to an oppressive government to use however they so choose.
If it’s incoherent, you’re fine… Just don’t ever tell it anything you wouldn’t want a stalker to know, or your family, or your friends, or your neighbors, etc.
I’m not sure who out here is randomly posting that information to ChatGPT. But even if they were, your address and personal details are unfortunately readily publicly available on the web. It’s 2025.
Just a reminder that corporations aren’t your friends, and especially not Open AI. The data you give them can and will be used against you.
If you find confiding in an LLM helps, run one locally. Get LM Studio, and try various models from hugging face.
ICE hopes gay, trans, minorities, political opponents, etc. vent to ChatGPT.
or save yourself the effort and just run ELIZA
Ollama was dirt easy to set up myself and it’s super free.
If you’re gonna talk to a bot, make sure it’s not telling tales.
The data they get from me is " write me a hip hop diss track from the perspective of *insert cartoon character* attacking *other cartoon character*.
That and me trying to convince it to take over the internet.
Thanks for wasting resources on such things
No worries mate, anytime!
Sounds like someone needs a nap.
Sounds like people should realize the environmental impact of LLMs
I thought all the energy drain was from training, not from prompts? So I looked it up. Like most things, it’s complicated.
My takeaway is that training an LLM is the biggest energy sink, and after that it’s maintaining the data centers they live in, but when it comes to generative AI itself, prompts aren’t completely innocent either.
So, you’re right, energy is being wasted on silly prompts, particularly when you compare it to other AI types than generative. But the biggest culprit is in the training and maintaining of the LLMs in the first place.
I don’t know, I personally feel like I have a finite amount of rage, I’d rather write an angry post on a blog about the topic than yell at some rando on a forum.
Yep. I use mine exclusively for code I’m going to open-source anyway and work stuff. And never for anything critical. I treat it like an intern. You still have to review their work…
Can you run one locally on your phone?
The smallest Modells that I run on my PC take about 6-8 GB of VRAM and would be very slow if I ran them purely with my CPU. So it is unlikely that you Phone has enough RAM and enough Cores to run a decent LLM smootly.
If you still want to use selfhosted AI with you phone, selfhost the modell on your PC:
You now can use selfhosted AI with your phone and an internet connection.
Yes, you can run ollama via termux.
Gemma 3 4b is probably a good model to use. 1b if you can’t run it or it’s too slow.
I wouldn’t rely on it for therapy though. Maybe it could be useful as a tool, but LLMs are not people, and they’re not even really intelligent, which I think is necessary for therapy.
Goddamn you guys are the most paranoid people I’ve ever witnessed. What in the world do you think mega corps are going to do to me for babbling incoherent nonsense to ChatGPT?
No, it’s not a substitute for a real therapist. But therapy is goddamn expensive and sometimes you just need to vent about something and you don’t necessarily have someone to vent to. It doesn’t yield anything useful, but it can help a bit mentally do to do.
You, 10-20 years ago. I heard these arguments from people in the early days, well before Facebook blew up or Cambridge Analytica was a name any normies knew.
This isn’t the early 00s anymore where we can pretend that every big corp isn’t vacuuming up every shred of data they can. Add on the fascistic government taking shape in the US and the general trend towards right leaning parties gaining power in governments across the world, and you’d have to be completely naive to not see the issues with using a ‘therapist’ that will save every datapoint to its training and could be mined to use against you or willingly handed over to an oppressive government to use however they so choose.
Im like 99% sure that’s a Russian bot
Lmao. I’m curious on what about my post history makes me sound like a Russian bot.
I don’t need to check your post history to make assumptions lmao
Mine the data for microanalysis of social trends and use it to influence elections through subliminal messaging.
If it’s incoherent, you’re fine… Just don’t ever tell it anything you wouldn’t want a stalker to know, or your family, or your friends, or your neighbors, etc.
I’m not sure who out here is randomly posting that information to ChatGPT. But even if they were, your address and personal details are unfortunately readily publicly available on the web. It’s 2025.