Local does not always mean private

On the mountain road, a locked case could protect the copied scroll from bandits. But the temple still had to open the case before the Oracle could read it.

Keeping the Oracle in the village removes that journey. The question and answer can remain inside Elara's walls.

A local model can keep its calculations and conversation on your computer. That reduces the number of outside systems that must be trusted.

But a hut can have other doors. The surrounding application may still contact the internet. It might check for updates, send diagnostics, call an online tool, or mix local and hosted models.

Privacy depends on the whole application, not only the location of the model.

To know where information goes, follow every path out of the machine.