For me, building with open weights models sounds like the right approach — you are able to switch providers, and you can control where the server is running.
You don't have any guarantees in terms of data, that's true, you rely on the provider. But this is similar to a database or other services where you don't have the knowledge or resources to run them yourself. Hardware cost is an additional factor here.
If on the other hand your idea works out and the model fits the use case, you can always decide to move to a dedicated infrastructure later.
The same thing can happen in development. Data exfiltration or local file removals are often downplayed; I wonder why nobody talks about the lethal trifecta anymore.
I see this as a way to build apps with agentic flows where the original files don't need manipulation; instead, you create something new. Whether it's summarizing, answering questions, or generating new documents, you can use a local/internal LLM and feel relatively safe when tool calling is also restricted.
I like the perspective used to approach this. Additionally, the fact that major browsers can accept a folder as input is new to me and opens up some exciting possibilities.
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