Keep it LLocal: Using LLMs on a Machine You Can Touch

Would you have gotten away with your prompt if not for that meddling cloud giant and their over-restrictive ToS? Interested in AI’s large language models, but not so stoked about running all of your potentially-sensitive prompts through the cloud? Well, it’s 2025… sheesh, who can really blame you? This introductory session is intended for those with interest, but limited experience, in running LLMs on their own hardware. Join us for a crash course on a few common local LLM setups for your desktop or laptop, the hardware you might (or might not) actually need to work with LLMs or other AI / ML tools locally, and the present state of the resource landscape for the would-be AI home gamer. We hope you *do* end up trying this at home.