My coworker told me to ignore the hype and just use a basic local LLM for our internal docs, and after 3 months of testing, our team's accuracy went up 12%.

He said 'the big cloud models are overkill for structured data you already own,' so we set up Llama 3 on a spare server, and now I'm wondering why more small shops don't skip the API fees and go local for simple tasks.

4 comments

4 Comments

fiona_carr261mo ago

Wow, @carter.mila's story really shows how powerful a simple local setup can be.

fiona_hunt715d ago

Actually read a good breakdown about this from a guy who runs a small law firm. He said they switched their document review to a local Mistral model and found it caught way more contract inconsistencies than Claude or GPT ever did for their specific types of clauses. The thing that stuck with me was he mentioned the model got better the more they fed it their old case files and briefs, like it really learned their style and priorities. Kinda makes you wonder if all these expensive APIs are just marketing hype when a solid local setup can do the job better for free.

carter.mila1mo ago

My friend's design firm tried the same thing with their project notes... they grabbed an old computer, installed a local model, and trained it on their past client briefs. Now it pulls up old color schemes and layout ideas in seconds without any monthly bill. The team lead said it felt like digging through a filing cabinet versus having a chatty intern who keeps forgetting things.

holly7091mo ago

Totally, we did that with our meeting notes and it's like having a perfect memory for every dumb idea we ever had lol.