From Big AI Machines to Small AI at Home

Why the real future of AI depends on small, local systems – not giant cloud platforms.

I watched a short clip of Steve Jobs speaking in 1983 at Aspen – specifically this moment: https://youtu.be/t9HmOz8H0qI?t=4m45s – and it sparked a simple train of thought that feels very relevant to AI today.

In the clip, Jobs explains how early factories used electricity.

At first, there was just one big motor in the whole building. Every machine had to connect to that single motor. If the motor stopped, everything stopped. And all the machines had to be designed around that one centre.

Later, engineers learned how to make very small motors. Each machine could finally have its own motor.

That small change completely transformed how the world worked. It made machines more flexible, cheaper and practical for everyday life – including things like washing machines and household tools.

Here is the simple idea.

AI today looks like that old factory with one big motor.

There are a small number of very large AI systems in the cloud. Millions of people connect to them. Our questions, conversations and data are sent into the same few systems.

It feels personal. But underneath, it is still one shared machine.

The real danger with AI is not that it is becoming smarter.

The real danger is that:

• everyone depends on the same systems,
• everyone depends on the same companies,
• everyone depends on the same hidden rules,
• and everyone depends on decisions they do not control.

If that central system changes, your tools change. If it goes down, your tools stop. If it monitors behaviour, it monitors everyone.

This is why more people are starting to say very simple things:

“I don’t want my family’s life going into the cloud.”
“I don’t want everything I do sent to someone else’s computers.”

This is not only about privacy. It is about dependency.

What we actually need is the same kind of change that happened with electric motors.

We need small, local AI – not only big, central AI.

AI that runs:

• on your own computer,
• in your own home,
• inside your own local systems and communities.

So your tools still work if the internet is slow or unavailable, and so your private life does not have to leave your home in order for AI to help you.

Big cloud AI is like one huge motor powering everyone’s machines.

Local AI is like giving every home and every community its own small motor.

The future of AI should not be:

“Who owns the biggest AI in the world?”

It should be:

“Can every family and every community have its own small, private AI tool?”

The good news is that this is not far away.

Small AI models already exist. Computers and devices are becoming powerful enough to run them locally.

The real question is no longer technical.

The real question is this:

Do we build a world where everyone depends on one big AI machine – or a world where intelligence lives close to people, inside their own homes and communities?