If ChatGPT ran on a desktop, how much would the world change?
Hi folks,
In 1975 Bill Gates envisioned a PC in every home. If they took up 1000 sq ft, we wouldn't be here today! So in 2026 I envisioned smarter algorithms in every corner of computer science. Much like those 5 MB neural branch predictors that increase your desktop's efficiency, we need to see a diversity of AI techniques and technologies applied to solve some nice useful problems - "an AI in every PC!"
I think AI in the modern genAI era is hard to reproduce, study, and understand - this has consumer impacts and limits both utility and overall profitability of all AI and computing tech. I think it uses too many resources, lots of waste.
So I have a new architecture, and I applied it to make a really kickass vision model - JEV for vision tasks basically more or less. No training, stick it on a 200$ cell phone with a camera, and get some useful multiple choice predictions, scoring, and boolean answers for robotics or every day vision tasks, maybe build AI for your games where it can watch and play along - things of that ilk!
That's called FEVER. Fourier Encoder for Visual Embedding and Retrieval. My main application was to put it in a Postgres DB - it runs on a CPU at 50 img/s and I packed it overall into a multimodal database system that ingests huge quantities of data and helps corporations clean, curate, and analyze their multimedia: for compliance, AI training workloads, general product analytics and more. (fever.gimmelowdown.com)
It's proof of concept - if we can solve big vision problems on small compute; what else can we do? We have an LLM in production, the idea works I'd say but it's expensive to finish training. Honestly, our vision model is great IMO, but it's undertrained too.
So I am building a real business around this enterprise database product, trying to communicate what's possible when AI can do more with less - in particular no waiting on GPUs from hyperscale data center build outs because we can use what we have better; and more privacy for users and businesses.
AI that runs on a desktop computer at useful speeds and useful workloads, can reduce API cost to 0, keep billing flat, and prevent data egress off corporate networks so user data stays safer. It's all the missions in one - I really care, I publish my research even as a solo founder shop and I'm doing my best every day to make actually cool, fun, tech with heart and make the world a better place :)
Happy to be here.
