FHE is the future of AI. I predict local models with encrypted weights will become the norm. Both privacy preserving (insofar as anything on our devices can be) and locked down to prevent misuse. It may not be pretty but I think this is where we will end up.

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boramalper 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If you're interested in "private AI", see Confer [0] by Moxie Marlinspike, the founder of Signal private messaging app. They go into more detail in their blog. [1]

[0] https://confer.to/

[1] https://confer.to/blog/2025/12/confessions-to-a-data-lake/

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CamperBob2 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't get how this can work, and Moxie (or rather his LLM) never bothers to explain. How can an LLM possibly exchange encrypted text with the user without decrypting it?

The correct solution isn't yet another cloud service, but rather local models.

	▲	FrasiertheLion 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The model is running in a secure enclave that spans the GPU using NVIDIA Confidential Computing: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/solutions/confident.... The connection is encrypted with a key that is only accessible inside the enclave. Within the enclave itself, DRAM and PCIe connections between the CPU and GPU are encrypted, but the CPU registers and the GPU onboard memory are plaintext. So the computation is happening on plaintext data, it’s just extremely difficult to access it from even the machine running the enclave.
	▲	boramalper 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		They explain it in Private inference [0] if you want to read about it. [0] https://confer.to/blog/2026/01/private-inference/

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Reptur 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If encrypted outputs can be viewed or used, they can be reverse-engineered through that same interface. FHE shifts the attack surface, it does not eliminate it.

	▲	Chance-Device 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		If you know how to reverse engineer weights or even hidden states through simple text output without logprobs I’d be interested in hearing about it. I imagine a lot of other people would be too.
	▲	anon291 an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I mean, no they cannot be viewed at any point once encrypted unless you have the key. That's the point. Even the intermediate steps are random gibberish unless you have the key

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Foobar8568 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

FHE is impractical by all means. Either it's trivially broken and unsecured or the space requirements go beyond anything usable.

There is basically no business demand beside from sellers and scholars.