The Privacy Diet James Patrick
Cover of AI's Wide Shut

Book three · after The Privacy Diet and Be Your Own Cloud

AI's Wide Shut

Private AI: How to Use It Without Giving Yourself Away

by James Patrick

Get the book Open the code companion
Chapters
19
Parts
5
Code blocks
8
Level
Beginner to power user

Reading along

Every prompt you send to a cloud AI goes to someone else's server. This book is about what happens to it there, how to share less, and how to run AI on hardware you own so nothing leaves the house at all.

The first three parts need no technical skills: where your words go, the settings for the big assistants, opting out of training, and AI scams. Part 4 runs a private assistant on your own computer, or on the home server from Be Your Own Cloud. Part 5 covers chatting with your own documents, local voice, and AI agents.

The book's commands and configuration files are on the code companion, generated from the manuscript rather than retyped. Two things the book says change too fast for print are kept current here: the robots.txt for AI crawlers and the model suggestions.

What's inside

  1. Part 1 — Where Your Words Go

    • Chapter 1 What Happens When You Press Enter
    • Chapter 2 The AI You Didn't Ask For
    • Chapter 3 Your AI Threat Model

  2. Part 2 — Using Cloud AI Without Oversharing

    • Chapter 4 The Don't-Paste List
    • Chapter 5 Settings for the Big Assistants
    • Chapter 6 More Private AI Services
    • Chapter 7 AI at Work

  3. Part 3 — Stop Feeding the Machine

  4. Part 4 — Your Own Private AI

  5. Part 5 — Agents and Your Own Data

    • Chapter 15 Chat With Your Own Documents, Privately
    • Chapter 16 Local Voice 1 code block
    • Chapter 17 AI Agents
    • Chapter 18 Running an Agent Safely
    • Chapter 19 Your Private AI Plan

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