No, Local LLMs Can't Replace ChatGPT or Gemini — I Tried - Make Tech Easier

Make Tech Easier's experiment with running a local LLM on an ordinary PC revealed that it is severely limited and cannot replace ChatGPT or Gemini, highlighting the significant gap between local and cloud-based language models. This means that website owners can expect the majority of AI bot traffic to continue coming from cloud-based services like ChatGPT, rather than local LLMs running on individual users' devices. As a result, website owners should prioritize tracking and managing traffic from these cloud-based services to ensure they are not being overwhelmed by AI-generated requests. To effectively manage AI bot traffic, website owners can take the following steps: monitor their website's traffic logs for suspicious patterns, update their llms.txt files to include the latest known AI bot user agents, and implement rate limiting or CAPTCHAs to prevent abuse. By taking these proactive measures, website owners can help protect their sites from excessive AI-generated traffic and ensure a better experience for human visitors.