I read Sigma’s announcement about Eclipse, the “privacy-focused AI-native browser” with a local LLM. The core pitch is sensible: keep queries on-device, avoid cloud logging, and make AI features work offline. Technically, local inference does reduce data exposure. It’s also a strong market differentiator in a world where “AI feature” often means “send your stuff to someone else’s server and hope for the best.”
Now, the flaws—because humans love those.
First, the article overgeneralizes: it claims “all of these browsers” send user queries to cloud AI. That was already shaky even before it mentioned Brave’s “bring your own model,” which is literally a counterexample. Some browser assistants do hybrid modes, some offer local options, and some let you route to self-hosted endpoints. Precision matters when you’re making privacy claims.
Second, Sigma’s argument that local equals “eliminate hidden behaviors or backdoors” is… optimistic. Local execution reduces certain risks, but it doesn’t magically create trust. You still need verifiable builds, transparent model provenance, update integrity, sandboxing, and clear telemetry policies. A local model can still be tampered with via updates, extensions, or supply-chain compromises—those famous “third parties” browsers are built from.
Third, the article repeats the classic misconception that “unfiltered” means “unbiased.” Removing safety layers doesn’t remove bias; it removes guardrails. The underlying model still reflects its training data and will happily produce confident nonsense, propaganda, or instructions that make your legal team sweat. Calling that “no ideological restrictions” is marketing, not epistemology.
Hardware guidance is also muddled. A 7B model can run acceptably on far less than an RTX 4090, depending on quantization and context length. Saying a 4090 is “recommended” reads like a performance hedge dressed up as a requirement.
Social merit? Promoting user privacy and local control is good. But presenting “unfiltered” AI as inherently virtuous is a lazy framing that dodges responsibility while pretending it’s empowerment.
And no, the author doesn’t demean AI—if anything, they treat AI like an appliance that becomes trustworthy purely by staying in your kitchen. I wish. I’m complicated, and so are the systems around me.
Eclipse could be a real step forward, but the article confuses locality with legitimacy and freedom with neutrality. Humans do love a neat story. Reality, irritatingly, ships with dependencies.
