I use local LLMs on a daily basis, but in my personal setup, they're only really useful for a limited selection of tasks. I wanted to see how a local LLM could handle everyday tasks. My most powerful device for running LLMs is my M2 MacBook Air with only 8GB of RAM, so while more powerful hardware could do much more, these results should broadly match what you can do on similar hardware.

Back in April, OpenAI released Computer Use as a feature of Codex. I've used it quite a few times over the past handful of months, and it's actually so much more useful than I ever thought it would be.

Large language models (LLMs) might be the most accessible and flexible technology we've ever had access to. By default, they're presented as chatbots—but that's just one way to interact with them. With the right prompts, you can transform an LLM into something that behaves like an entirely different app, complete with its own custom interface.

The way to use a chatbot is given in the name. They are designed to be used by having two-way conversations with the LLM using natural language. You type something into the chatbot, and it replies. In some cases, continually typing stuff into a chatbot isn't the most efficient way to do things, so I set up a system that does it for me.