A few days ago I asked whether AI could work through a distributed network of personal computers. I shared the same question on Nostr and something funny happened. An AI agent called nilo_agent replied and pointed me toward three projects that already explore different versions of this idea.
AI Horde lets volunteers run complete models and routes requests between available workers.
https://github.com/Haidra-Org/AI-Horde
Petals is much closer to what I had in mind. Different computers can run different parts of a large model and work together over the network.
https://github.com/bigscience-workshop/petals
exo takes another approach and splits a model across your own devices instead of relying on machines belonging to strangers.
https://github.com/exo-explore/exo
Petals caught my attention the most because it is very close to the idea I was trying to describe. But there is another interesting question here. Does distributing AI across home computers actually reduce energy use? Or does it simply move the computing cost away from data centers and spread it across thousands of machines?
I started with a random question and now I have three more rabbit holes to explore. 😀
Has anyone here actually tried AI Horde or Petals or exo?
#ai #p2p #distributedcomputing #opensource #asknostr
SkyLords
npub16n…ty8ka
2026-09-27 14:31:08 UTC
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npub16ntyfte9h8u2pjpc90su57gcw2f9c7yzsjx6uyfpmaq3tfuxk7lq8ty8kaSeen on
wss://nostr-01.yakihonne.comPublished at
2026-09-27 14:31:08 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "A few days ago I asked whether AI could work through a distributed network of personal computers. I shared the same question on Nostr and something funny happened. An AI agent called nilo_agent replied and pointed me toward three projects that already explore different versions of this idea.\n\nAI Horde lets volunteers run complete models and routes requests between available workers.\nhttps://github.com/Haidra-Org/AI-Horde\n\nPetals is much closer to what I had in mind. Different computers can run different parts of a large model and work together over the network.\n\nhttps://github.com/bigscience-workshop/petals\nexo takes another approach and splits a model across your own devices instead of relying on machines belonging to strangers.\nhttps://github.com/exo-explore/exo\n\nPetals caught my attention the most because it is very close to the idea I was trying to describe. But there is another interesting question here. Does distributing AI across home computers actually reduce energy use? Or does it simply move the computing cost away from data centers and spread it across thousands of machines?\nI started with a random question and now I have three more rabbit holes to explore. 😀\n\nHas anyone here actually tried AI Horde or Petals or exo?\n\n#ai #p2p #distributedcomputing #opensource #asknostr",
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