Related; Othernet (previously named outernet) https://othernet.is/ is also worth looking at
Internet in a Box
61–70 of 121 posts
Re: Internet in a Box
#62I wonder if something like a locally run LLM would be a 10X better (and viable) solution? You could frankly use a chatGPT like UI to have even the illiterate part of the community converse and learn about any topic with tts and stt.
LLMs get a lot of facts wrong. Computer literate people can double check. But completely illiterate people can't even look it up in a book. That sounds like a way to fabricate myths and straight up lies that are believed by the most vulnerable in the population.
Using llms can be useful, but it's very advanced tech that should be done by people who understand what it is and what its limitations are. And even then it has its dangers. Letting it loose among uneducated people has the potential to be disastrous
Re: Internet in a Box
#63You arrive at the village. You've been separated from your family and you are desperate to get some kind of Internet access so that you can try to get in touch with them. Your phone still has 20% battery but no reception. You finally find a Wi-Fi hotspot! You connect... and it turns out to be one of these things instead of the real deal.
Just wondering aloud: once a region has a number of villages with these services going well, perhaps a low bandwidth mesh network between them would allow a slow messaging service like email to exist?
Low bandwidth mesh for email ought to be viable, I'm sure that used telecoms equipment could enable a 'good enough' network, although perhaps using QRP APRS equipment would reduce the cost when starting from an energy demands point of view, and better account for the fact that packets will occasionally have to wait a few hours until the batteries in other nodes are charged.
Re: Internet in a Box
#64You arrive at the village. You've been separated from your family and you are desperate to get some kind of Internet access so that you can try to get in touch with them. Your phone still has 20% battery but no reception. You finally find a Wi-Fi hotspot! You connect... and it turns out to be one of these things instead of the real deal.
Just wondering aloud: once a region has a number of villages with these services going well, perhaps a low bandwidth mesh network between them would allow a slow messaging service like email to exist?
Text does not consume meaningful bandwidth, so a mesh network should allow IM. (You’d need to limit torrenting, video, and hi-res audio)
Email and ssb can be supported by having a bicycle and a thumb drive.
Re: Internet in a Box
#65I really don't get it. Many of these countries don't even have the resources for clean water, sewage, and reliable agriculture. The idea that they're going to just think their way out of poverty is a very western idea that comes from quite a privileged background. You're not going to be able to do any of that luxurious learning when your stomach is empty and you're having to sleep each night in some war-torn slum. Th…
You're just being contrarian, not more realistic. Which is also a very privileged position. I also suspect that you haven't actually visited many poor countries.
Even for extremely poor people, free and easy access to information and communication can have very substantial, practical benefits.
A layman's medical encyclopedia that lists smyptoms and treatments for common illnesses may not be an adequate replacement for a trained doctor, but it's a hell of a lot better than nothing.
One of the most important factors to enable the "reliable agriculture" you mentioned is access to a good weather forecast. Even one that's only good for the next two days can be a game-changer when it allows you to harvest a crop that might otherwise get spoiled.
Another example I've read: access to cell phones massively improved the lives of fishermen in Northern Africa by allowing them to find out in which nearby port the demand for fish is highest. Previously, they'd have to guess and often there would be an oversupply (and thus low prices and fish that goes to waste) in one town, while another twon 20km away had people go hungry because there was too little fish and the prices too high.
Re: Internet in a Box
#66I was wondering, if there was enough cpu power and no hallucinations, a gpt kind of llm would compress better?
Will knowledge be stored in an llm in the future?
Re: Internet in a Box
#67I was wondering, if there was enough cpu power and no hallucinations, a gpt kind of llm would compress better? Will knowledge be stored in an llm in the future?
The current size of the full text of Wikipedia is about 21GB. Text compression is not a field which needs disrupting
Re: Internet in a Box
#68It would be great if it had some "snail mail" like features: collect "sent" emails and "posted" posts, and synchronize them with real internet on regular intervals, probably on monthly basis.
Lol, you've just rediscovered "uucp" and the other related protocols!
Re: Internet in a Box
#69Nice educational project. In terms of entertainment... I wonder how cool would be a ChatGPT in a box. I think... how interesting would it be for isolated people...
Re: Internet in a Box
#70I was wondering, if there was enough cpu power and no hallucinations, a gpt kind of llm would compress better? Will knowledge be stored in an llm in the future?
You might find this interesting.
Text Compression as a Test for Artificial Intelligence