Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer program to perform tasks similar to how humans use cognitive functions to do things. Aspects of human intelligence, such as conversation, creation of media, making decisions, solving problems, and recognizing patterns are capabilities of artificial intelligence as well. Humans can create artificial intelligence programs to do tasks that humans can do in shorter amounts of time.
However, humankind has doubts about artificial intelligence. Many are afraid that artificial intelligence might be a detriment to humankind. For example, people are afraid that AI programs might absolve people like artists and actors of their jobs, or that AI is a means to harvest private data on users of the software.
As an experiment, I set out to create a program that recreates the feel of ChatGPT by only using open source programs. My AI chatbot aims to show the current advancements and limitations of artificial intelligence, while hosting the entire program on a local PC. The point of this chatbot is to demonstrate that artificial intelligence can exist in society without some of its caveats. For instance, this chatbot only uses technology that is locally hosted on the machine that the user is using. This ensures the user’s privacy is kept safe because the program does not transmit any user data to some server somewhere else in the world. Additionally, by locally hosting the chatbot, the program can be adjusted to perform specific tasks only required by the user at any given time. Internet connection is not required.
This project uses tools that are not only locally hosted but also are completely free and open source to achieve an AI-powered assistant experience. The “brain” of the program takes advantage of Ollama, an open-source Large Language Model (LLM) distribution platform created by Meta (Facebook). Anyone can download models from this platform to use them in their computer programs for free. This project also uses an image generation tool called Flux, the same technology used by Grok, X’s (formerly known as Twitter) Artificial Intelligence tool.
If you would like to view the source code of this project, you can do so here: https://github.com/TheWildKing/portfolio/tree/main/Chatbot