Use of AI. Where does local begin ?

Questions
1

Hello,
It’s been a long time I read resources in this forum and learn about privacy (what to check and why mainly).
But, today I feel I need to ask my direct question :
My take on llm is : Local ai are the most private, but to get a good level of tool it feels like the hardwareconfiguration start level is high.
Today, I’m using opencode with open Z models with free use (I know it is not my best idea but it was easy and interesting).
I’m not discussing or researching personnal matters. I want an ai buttler that can help me manage my home network.
it helped me make an immich auto backup to proton drive that was smthing I found very hard to do…
My question is : if asking general coding Q to an ai → I feel it is ok to use a free tool.
The problem with opencode and its strengh is that it can take small tasks, plan them and execute them. if my task is say “sort out my photos duplicates and propose a new architecture of folders”
Can it send pictures data to the cloud, can it use files titles and text and network information to profile and send to the cloud ?
have I well understood the risk of such tools or is my use OK for freemium ?

Thanks in advance for your help in disambiguate my approach of this question :slight_smile:

2

I am not sure my answer will be useful; a proper answer probably requires more details.

sort out my photos duplicates… Can it send pictures data to the cloud

If it is about byte-to-byte duplicates, it looks like no LLM is needed here; there are tools for this. A self-written script will do the job too, and a free LLM will help to write it. For visually similar but not identical images requiring some reasoning, the whole point is uploading them to the cloud, so it kind of answers itself

Can it use files titles and text and network information to profile?

Whatever the agent reads is sent to the provider. What happens to it depends on the provider, not the tooling: Zen | OpenCode Though I’m quit sure that ai companies are very strict about not using passed data.

Like always, the most private way to protect data is not sending it. I would decompose the job:

— ask the model to help you with a script that exports all metadata (folder structure, image metadata);
— share the result with the model for planning
— ask the model to implement the plan

At every stage you can limit what the model can access