I have avoided AI (LLMS) because it didn’t seem nearly useful enough to warrant supporting these tech assholes. Is there anyway to use it locally on a normal device (16 Gb ram, 8 year old Geforce graphics, etc?). Can I just slow it down and get it to work locally?


Yes, very much so.
Take a look at my comment here.
PS: you might also be interested in this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apertus_(LLM)