It is already possible to run ChatGPT on devices without having to be connected to the internet. The MLC Chat application is an open source solution designed for anyone who needs to query generative AI from anywhere.
The team responsible for the project is MLC AI, a company that managed to make ChatGPT run locally on computers and cell phones. The application, however, is large and is about 4 GB in size, after all the entire database of the GPT-3.5 model is present there.
The program’s appearance is as simple as the original version, but it has a layout reminiscent of iMessage. You ask questions via the text box and receive the answers in a gray bubble.
The program has versions for almost all platforms: iOS (iPhone), iPadOS (iPad), macOS, Windows, Linux and a web version. The latter obviously requires an internet connection and is beyond the original purpose of MLC LLM, although it allows accessing the solution on systems that are still incompatible, such as Android.
Problems running MLC on iPhone
For now, only TestFlight subscribers would be able to experience the solution on iOS, so it’s likely that not everyone will have immediate access. Even so, it is interesting to note how developers manage to expand the functionalities of OpenAI’s AI model.
Early testers reported a lot of slowness in using the platform on modern devices like the iPhone 13 Pro. The solution even manages to fulfill its role effectively by providing answers and producing content, but it is still far from being optimized for mobile phones.
Simple queries can take up to five minutes to respond. A tester on the iMore website asked to code a Tic-Tac-Toe Game in Swift UI, Apple’s programming language, but the query took more than 20 minutes to come up with a response.
For those who want to play with ChatGPT on Apple devices, the tip is to try Petey, compatible with Apple Watch, or with S-GPT, which runs on almost all iGadgets. Another solution is to download the Microsoft Edge browser and enjoy the built-in Bing Chat, which features the GPT-4 model for content creation, but requires an internet connection to run properly.
Source: iMore
