AI Bootlegging: Distilling Frontier Models for Local Power - Open Registration
Frontier AI systems are powerful — but they’re also centralized, expensive, and often out of reach for independent builders. What if you could compress that capability into models that run locally, privately, and cheaply?
AI Bootlegging is a deep-dive into model distillation: the techniques used to transfer the behavior of large frontier models into smaller, efficient ones that can run on consumer hardware, edge devices, or offline environments.
We’ll cover the fundamentals of distillation, show when it works (and when it doesn’t), compare it to quantization and fine-tuning, and walk through real-world use cases across robotics, agents, and privacy-sensitive systems.
The highlight of the night is a live end-to-end demo using an open-source tool built to make distillation accessible to anyone. Watch a frontier model’s behavior get compressed into a smaller model, evaluate performance, and see it run locally in real time.
This isn’t about piracy or evasion, it’s about resilience, accessibility, and putting powerful AI directly into the hands of builders.
This event is hosted at the Frontier Tower:
We are transforming a 16-floor tower in San Francisco into a self-governed vertical village—a hub for frontier technologies and creative arts. Tier-one labs presenting AI, Ethereum, biotech, neuroscience, longevity, robotics, makerspace, human flourishing, and arts & music. These floors will house innovators and creators pushing the boundaries of human potential in a post-AI-singularity world.
Apply here for founding citizenship: https://frontiertower.io/apply
Why should I become a citizen?
Be part of creating the first self-governed vertical village
Connect with the most creative people in the city
Get access to all floors, free event space & movement floor
Website: https://frontiertower.io/
Need more reading? Visit https://frontiertower.notion.site/