WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:07.300 What's up everyone? So how badly do you want to pay me $2,400 a year? And in exchange, 00:07.840 --> 00:13.060 I'll give you a web browser that was originally built and given away for free. 00:13.860 --> 00:18.340 It's not it. Hold on, does it catch? I'm not done yet. In addition to that, 00:18.520 --> 00:25.880 my version actually spies on everything that you do. So I can sell that data and make even 00:25.880 --> 00:33.500 more money. In addition to that, it also tracks your location. It injects ads that I think will 00:33.500 --> 00:40.720 psychologically manipulate you the best in order to buy the product that I'm getting paid to 00:40.720 --> 00:48.300 shield to you. And again, it doesn't stop there either. It also builds a permanent profile on you 00:48.300 --> 00:55.600 so that even if you discontinue using the service, I could still sell that data retroactively 00:55.600 --> 01:00.600 after the fact. Sounds great, right? I mean, don't you want to sign up for that service? 01:01.100 --> 01:06.680 I mean, right off the bat, paying for a web browser that was free to begin with is kind 01:06.680 --> 01:11.840 of moronic at best. And that's kind of where we're at here. Like what we're talking about today 01:11.840 --> 01:17.000 is just that because that's kind of the nightmare that's coming into play. 01:17.400 --> 01:23.520 Yesterday, Perplexity actually just launched a new product that's an AI web browser. And 01:23.520 --> 01:30.260 this video won't be endorsing or an endorsement of said product. Like if you haven't caught on to that 01:30.260 --> 01:35.960 yet with the complete opposite of that, they're calling it Comet and I'm calling it Clownware 01:35.960 --> 01:41.060 because that's actually what it is. At the end of the video, I'll actually show you how you 01:41.060 --> 01:48.100 can use locally hosted AI that keeps your data your own and you can run it on your own 01:48.100 --> 01:54.500 computer. And I'm talking about those people out there that are using that CRT monitor from 1997 01:54.500 --> 02:00.420 that runs on old hardware too. And I'll show you not only how you can actually include your own AI 02:00.420 --> 02:06.960 into an actual privacy browser, but also how to set it up. And not only is that method privacy 02:06.960 --> 02:14.700 preserving, but it also gives you the full control over it and it's free. But like for now, 02:14.700 --> 02:22.040 let's get back to actually cooking this ridiculous product. The Perplexity CEO who is this guy right 02:22.040 --> 02:29.000 here and has a name that I'm not even going to try to pronounce because in that case I'll sound 02:29.000 --> 02:35.200 as stupid as the product that they just launched and are trying to show. But he stated in a 02:35.200 --> 02:42.840 podcast that tracking everything you do online is the entire point of building this browser. 02:42.840 --> 02:49.460 I'm not even joking. You just cannot make this up. It's really what he actually said. 02:49.780 --> 02:53.780 The actual quote was we're able to know what users are doing inside of Perplexity, 02:53.800 --> 02:58.820 but not what they're doing elsewhere. And that was the key reason to build comment. 02:59.540 --> 03:04.700 Like in all seriousness, like screw this guy. This company wants your purchase history, 03:04.700 --> 03:13.980 travel details, browsing patterns, just everything to build ad profiles and diversify revenue making 03:13.980 --> 03:20.300 by turning you into a cash cow. And in more than one ways, you pay them $200 a month 03:20.300 --> 03:30.500 to spy on you. And they also get to sell your data. Google Chrome is free. Met his 03:30.500 --> 03:37.760 charges premium prices for the same surveillance model that made literally everyone distrust 03:37.760 --> 03:45.380 those companies to begin with. So you would be paying $2,400 annually to have all of your digital 03:45.380 --> 03:52.300 activity harvested and monetized. Like you said, screw Perplexity. Seriously. Like now, 03:52.400 --> 03:57.140 based on his own comments, when people actually started flipping out about this, 03:57.140 --> 04:02.460 rightfully so, he tried backpoddling so hard that I sincerely thought like he was going to snap 04:02.460 --> 04:08.580 his metaphorical head. And he started off saying that his comments were taken out of 04:08.580 --> 04:15.460 context, which is asinine. And it's absurd. It would be like you pausing this video right now 04:15.460 --> 04:22.220 and going and seeing me make a comment that comment was like this great thing in some other 04:22.220 --> 04:29.140 place. And my negative comments about Perplexity's clownware here were just taken out of context. 04:30.180 --> 04:34.980 And like now you see why I call it backpeddling. It's really what it is at the end of the day. 04:35.500 --> 04:42.020 In addition to that, all of a sudden, there are like opt out features and privacy modes that 04:42.020 --> 04:47.620 exist is just corporate damage control. None of the new features are actually meant to be useful 04:47.620 --> 04:54.120 to you, but rather to make you feel comfortable. It's kind of like handing out pillows in a torture 04:54.120 --> 05:01.800 chamber to kind of soften the chairs or putting soothing music in a slaughterhouse so that the 05:01.800 --> 05:07.840 animals stay more calm. Like those privacy controls are theater at the end of the day. 05:08.200 --> 05:12.800 They exist for one reason, so that you shut up and keep using their product. 05:12.800 --> 05:18.700 And nobody reads the terms of service. Obviously, it's very well known. Like when's the last time 05:18.700 --> 05:25.540 you actually did? Well, I do. I read them because I'm not normal. I could say 10 parts, but I'll 05:25.540 --> 05:30.580 keep it to three. That way I don't go out of control. The first is when they say you agree 05:30.580 --> 05:37.960 that Comet may monitor your use of the site to ensure quality, improve the service, 05:37.960 --> 05:44.660 and to verify your compliance. Essentially, this means that they already give themselves permission 05:44.660 --> 05:51.740 to track everything that you do right from the start. Privacy controls really don't actually change 05:52.600 --> 05:57.980 any of that. According to this language, anyways, their own language. And they also buried 05:58.560 --> 06:05.840 this gem. We may modify the terms and our services at any time in our sole discretion. 06:05.840 --> 06:10.180 So what that means is they can change the rules whenever they want, however they want. 06:10.480 --> 06:15.860 And if you keep using the browser, then that means you already agree to it. So 06:16.780 --> 06:20.500 all of that kind of means that they can do whatever they want, 06:20.820 --> 06:25.860 whatever they want. My favorite one is this last one, all provisions of these terms, 06:26.040 --> 06:33.100 which by their nature should survive will survive. Now that's legal speak for we keep 06:33.100 --> 06:38.240 your data even after you leave. And once they've built the profile on you, they keep it, 06:38.340 --> 06:43.920 whether they say that to you or not, that's what they're doing. Now mind you, this is all 06:44.460 --> 06:48.260 like their own documentation, all their own statements, their privacy policy. 06:48.800 --> 06:53.920 It's the default behavior basically, and the default behavior is maximum data extraction. 06:55.140 --> 07:01.400 It's their own fine print that actually proves it. The entire fraudulent concept of the AI 07:01.400 --> 07:06.660 browser in general to me is trashed. These companies pushed this narrative that their 07:06.660 --> 07:14.380 specialized browsers are somehow required for AI assistance during browsing sessions and that 07:15.030 --> 07:20.700 is just false. Brave browser already supports local large language models running directly 07:20.700 --> 07:27.100 inside of it. And models like Quen, 0.5 B are lightweight enough to actually operate 07:27.100 --> 07:33.700 on almost any machine produced in the last five years. Or in some cases, even computers that were 07:33.700 --> 07:40.660 like cutting edge further, while back older. And again, that goes out to my CTR homies that are 07:40.660 --> 07:45.540 out there with their 80 pound monitors. But with Brave and Olamah working together, 07:45.860 --> 07:53.600 users can actually access full private AI tools. And that's with no subscriptions, right? 07:54.440 --> 08:01.920 Harvesting of data, corporate middlemen, or cost, for that matter. Can it plan a trip 08:01.920 --> 08:10.160 to France for you? I haven't been able to do that, but it doesn't pimp me out to advertisers 08:10.800 --> 08:14.900 and for money. So that's good. I think that's kind of a fair tradeoff. 08:15.340 --> 08:20.340 The setup process is also really easy. So first you go to Olamah site and you download 08:20.340 --> 08:25.280 the application and you install it. And then you go pull the model you want to use. 08:25.560 --> 08:30.040 And you could pull as many as you like, but in this case, we're pulling one. And 08:30.740 --> 08:35.920 the vast majority of people should be able to run this with ease, like I said before. 08:36.480 --> 08:42.620 Connect it to Brave by opening up the bring your own model feature. And you do that by holding 08:42.620 --> 08:50.200 control and hitting B on the keyboard or go to the show sidebar icon at the top. 08:50.540 --> 08:54.920 And here we can see a bunch of different options that we can actually select. 08:55.360 --> 09:01.900 Out of the most important ones are our ability to choose the actual default model that we will 09:01.900 --> 09:06.660 be actually using in the future. And this is where we can do that. If you scroll down, 09:06.660 --> 09:14.200 you'll also see the ability to connect self hosted or like third party LLMs, if you wanted to use 09:14.200 --> 09:19.660 a specific service, select add model. The first field that we see is a label. 09:20.040 --> 09:24.220 For this, you could put in almost anything. And this, but this is what's going to show up 09:24.220 --> 09:28.840 when you go to select a model after hitting control B. For this example, we'll just put 09:28.840 --> 09:35.660 Quemp. And the model request name is going to be the name that Olamah uses, which in this 09:35.660 --> 09:42.320 case is going to be Quen 306B, basically. The server endpoint is just where our 09:42.860 --> 09:48.200 contact is in this case. And in this case, it's going to be basically a local host 09:48.200 --> 09:56.460 with a port number. If this doesn't work for you, you can replace it in with the 127.0.0.1, 09:56.780 --> 10:01.900 which is also a local host. The contact size is just a maximum number of tokens 10:01.900 --> 10:07.460 the model can actually handle in a single conversation or prompt. And for this model, 10:07.860 --> 10:16.500 that number is 32,768. Next is the API key, which we'll skip because we're running it locally because 10:17.020 --> 10:22.820 we're awesome. And we don't have to use API keys. So the system prompt is just a default 10:22.820 --> 10:29.860 instruction or personality that you want. And for me, I'll put be concise, factual, 10:29.860 --> 10:37.480 indirect, and avoid lists. Since this model does not actually support vision, 10:38.000 --> 10:43.520 we're going to leave this as is. Next, click save model. And from that moment on, 10:43.760 --> 10:51.220 everything runs locally. Conversations stay on your machine. Nothing leaves your actual device. 10:51.680 --> 10:58.080 There's no hidden processes or siphoning data in the background. And this solution is so effective 10:58.080 --> 11:03.760 that it makes products like Comet to some degree, look ridiculous. And naturally, 11:03.880 --> 11:09.380 perplexity avoids actually mentioning things like this, because in that case, there's nothing to 11:09.380 --> 11:16.120 sell when privacy actually remains in their hands. Now their business model collapses the moment 11:16.120 --> 11:23.540 that people actually realize that other options exist. Now I realize that obviously the difference 11:23.540 --> 11:31.380 between kind of these two products, in fact, is pretty great. And my example, obviously, 11:32.360 --> 11:37.740 excludes a lot of automation that is actually present in Comet. And I will absolutely concede 11:37.740 --> 11:43.500 that point. However, I think, as I said before, that the trade off is absolutely worth it. 11:43.860 --> 11:48.820 The timing of Comet's release also makes everything kind of more transparent. 11:49.460 --> 11:55.500 Google is facing a antitrust lawsuit from the Department of Justice over Chrome's dominance 11:56.160 --> 12:03.380 in the browser marketplace. And some proposals even call for Google to actually sell Chrome. 12:03.860 --> 12:11.560 And all of a sudden, every AI company starts announcing their own browsers. Perplexity has 12:11.560 --> 12:17.700 already expressed interest in acquiring Chrome, which kind of says everything about their actual 12:17.700 --> 12:24.880 priorities. None of these companies are actually trying to build better browsers, right? They're 12:24.880 --> 12:33.360 assembling surveillance hubs, basically, and making users pay for the privilege of being spied on. 12:33.620 --> 12:39.620 They've realized that the whole browser methodology is kind of the most powerful data 12:39.620 --> 12:45.980 collection device in the digital ecosystem that you can have. Every search, transaction, 12:45.980 --> 12:53.160 page view, workflows, all of it goes through it. And whoever controls it controls the entire 12:54.060 --> 13:00.200 flow of behavioral data. And therefore, the revenue attached to it. And even the AI features 13:00.200 --> 13:06.340 in Comet kind of reveal how shallow the offering actually is. Features like the tab 13:06.340 --> 13:13.640 management and email summarization. They've existed for years through very basic browser 13:13.640 --> 13:20.560 extensions that exist. And the local tools that don't need to spy on anyone like the product 13:20.560 --> 13:28.000 being sold is the user's behavior kind of packaged and auctioned to the highest bidder. And like, 13:28.240 --> 13:34.180 let's forget Facebook as the world's real ID database, which it is, this entire model is 13:35.600 --> 13:41.020 surveillance capitalism kind of finely tuned for maximum profitability. 13:41.620 --> 13:48.480 Where unlike Facebook, the user actually puts the bill for the surveillance and they figured out 13:48.480 --> 13:55.860 how to convince people to fund their own exploitation and surveillance and turn around and 13:55.860 --> 14:03.100 proudly call it innovation. And there'll be plenty of YouTubers who will be out here and 14:03.100 --> 14:08.400 they'll be like, once they get access to exclusive access to it, which just means 14:08.400 --> 14:13.780 they're paid shills and in turn are now shilling how great it is. And you'll see the same kind of 14:13.780 --> 14:20.540 nonsense with VPNs. Like a good rule of thumb is if you see a YouTuber shilling it, walk away. 14:20.840 --> 14:26.600 Don't buy it. I don't even like want you to believe me. I'm absolutely a fan of people 14:26.600 --> 14:31.620 trying to prove me wrong. And the reason for that is because when they actually do it 14:31.620 --> 14:36.740 effectively, I get to learn something for free and no cost to me. Like I have no ego. 14:36.740 --> 14:42.260 So this pattern isn't limited to perplexity either. Like I'm not just coming at them. 14:42.360 --> 14:47.940 Every major AI company is now pushing the same stupid $200 subscription tier, 14:48.880 --> 14:56.580 like open AI, Google, Anthropic, all of them. Some more or less, but the vast majority somehow 14:56.580 --> 15:02.800 magically all landed on the same price point that says that there's nothing actually accidental 15:02.800 --> 15:08.680 about it. Now the price itself is the marketing pitch. Charging up and people assume that it's 15:08.680 --> 15:14.840 actually worthwhile. The idea, like if you want to reference it is from research done by Rao and 15:14.840 --> 15:22.040 Roe back in 1989, as called price quality inference and open source solutions keep 15:22.040 --> 15:28.660 advancing rapidly. Local models grow more and more capable every single month and privacy 15:28.660 --> 15:34.360 focused browsers continue adding AI functionality that has no surveillance. 15:34.740 --> 15:41.180 Furthermore, you have functionality in some of the tools, like anything LLM, for example, 15:41.200 --> 15:48.040 which is absolutely amazing that lets you do things like summarize emails or notices via 15:48.040 --> 15:52.700 scraping, right? Anything LLM is totally free and another solution that is totally 15:52.700 --> 15:57.900 local, like it allows for the creation of agents as well and workflows for them at 15:57.900 --> 16:03.820 anyways. The tools these companies are charging premium prices for are already becoming widely 16:03.820 --> 16:09.160 accessible to anyone actually willing to just invest a very small amount of time. AI powered 16:09.160 --> 16:15.180 browsing could absolutely be remarkable. I think it would be revolutionary if it wasn't actually 16:15.180 --> 16:20.160 deliberately tied to surveillance, research tools, article summaries, workflow management, 16:20.540 --> 16:26.840 like none of it actually requires giving up privacy. Like these are capabilities that 16:26.840 --> 16:36.780 already exist through open source tools that keep the user in full control and their data 16:36.780 --> 16:42.940 in their hands. And I'm far from like a subject matter expert in AI or local AI for that matter, 16:43.060 --> 16:49.160 like, but I'd love to know about any, like local solutions that you know about. So please 16:49.160 --> 16:54.940 drop them in the comments. But every time someone picks a surveillance based software 16:54.940 --> 17:02.220 over a private alternative, essentially they are voting for a future where privacy becomes a luxury. 17:02.740 --> 17:09.240 Surveillance ends up becoming the standard and everything about their digital life becomes 17:09.240 --> 17:14.360 a product on someone else's balance sheet. And that is until the data breach happens. 17:14.960 --> 17:21.140 And a lot of these companies are actually coming out with these AI browsers, like you said 17:21.140 --> 17:25.560 before, perplexity is the only one. And I see it as a gamble that if enough people are willing to pay 17:25.560 --> 17:31.760 to be surveilled, that most users will never actually discover alternatives and that convenience 17:31.760 --> 17:38.660 will continue to outweigh any kind of concern for privacy. If they win, this market will shift 17:38.660 --> 17:45.360 permanently the tech industry as a possibility will remove the distinction between privacy and 17:45.360 --> 17:52.120 convenience altogether. And at that point, it wouldn't be necessarily whether you're willing to 17:52.120 --> 18:00.280 trade privacy for ease of use, but it'll be about whether you're allowed to participate at all. 18:00.560 --> 18:06.500 We have the ability to vote with our dollars. It's the most powerful way to vote. And 18:07.040 --> 18:12.760 it's just the gorst in me that loves that power. If we have nothing else, we have that 18:12.760 --> 18:18.040 ability. And it's going to be interesting seeing what people actually choose. And typically, it's 18:18.040 --> 18:23.920 not good decisions that they choose, but my hope is that they choose well, and that development 18:23.920 --> 18:31.300 on those open source projects continues to ramp up and evolve and hopefully can crowdsource enough 18:31.300 --> 18:37.360 people to be able to knock these other projects out of the box or make it so that what they 18:37.360 --> 18:44.420 offer doesn't come close to what the open source community can offer. So anyways, oh, I saw this 18:44.420 --> 18:48.320 came out. I wanted to make a quick video on it. Thank you for watching to the end, and I'll see you