How to Run LLMs Locally When Cloud AI Gets Too Invasive

If you've been paying attention to the AI space lately, you've probably noticed a trend: cloud AI providers are tightening the screws on identity verification. We're talking government IDs, facial recognition scans, the works. For a lot of developers, that's a hard no. I'm not here to debate whether these policies are justified. What I am here to do is walk you through a practical setup for running capable LLMs on your own hardware, so your workflow doesn't depend on any singl