Welcome to Lesson 3 of the How to Succeed with AI free course.
I’m Dave Waring, your instructor, and the co-creator of BrainDrive.ai.
In Lesson 1 we learned that what people refer to as AI is actually two things: the AI model (the intelligence) and the system (what makes that intelligence useful).
In Lesson 2 we learned why Your Memory is the most important part of any AI system, because it’s what makes AI powerful specifically for you. We also learned why you want to own Your Memory, so its power compounds for you.
So now the question is how do you own it? And that’s the topic of this lesson.
How to Own Your AI System
If you are non-technical, I know what you’re thinking: This is going to be impossible for me.
And up until recently, you would have been correct. You had to get all the pieces we discussed in Lesson 1 together yourself:
- You had to find an AI model to use
- You had to build or find an interface to use
- You had to create and manage your memory
- You had to host the system yourself
Kind of like when the personal computer first came out, it was primarily the geeks in computer clubs who were building personal computers from scratch.
But as with everything in technology, the geeks figure out how to make it easy for the rest of us.
The computing revolution gave us the personal computer. And the AI revolution is giving us the personal AI system.
Introducing BrainDrive — Your Personal AI System
For the rest of this course I am going to show you how to own and successfully partner with your own AI system using BrainDrive, the personal AI system my co-creator and I built for you.
However, you don’t have to use BrainDrive to continue benefiting from this course. Everything I discuss from this point on is still relevant to you regardless of whether you use BrainDrive or another system.
So what is BrainDrive?
BrainDrive is a personal AI system that brings together all the different pieces of an AI system for you. It makes owning a personal AI system as easy as owning a personal computer.
- AI Models — BrainDrive makes it easy to choose and connect to the AI model of your choice, and to swap between models if you wish
- Interface — BrainDrive gives you a ChatGPT-style interface, and makes it easy to connect other interfaces
- Your Memory — BrainDrive makes it easy to partner with AI to build, organize, and leverage Your Memory
- Hosting — BrainDrive makes it easy to host your AI system on your computer or with the hosting provider of your choice
BrainDrive is MIT licensed open source. That means once you download BrainDrive, you own and control your copy. No one can access your BrainDrive without your permission, take it away, or change the rules on you. Not even us.
And if that weren’t good enough, if you host BrainDrive on your own computer and use local models, you can run your personal AI system for 100% free.
How to Set Up Your BrainDrive in 4 Steps
For the rest of this lesson I am going to show you how to set up and run BrainDrive on your computer.
The setup is simple enough for anyone to follow, takes about 5 minutes and by the end you’ll be up and running with your very own AI system. I’ll even show you and option for how to run it 100% privately and for free using local AI models.
I am going to walk you through it one step at a time.
Here we go!
Step 1: Download Docker (It’s Free)
Go to Docker.com and click the “Download Docker Desktop” button. This will bring up a menu where you can select your computer’s operating system. If you don’t know which one your computer has, Google “how do I know what operating system my computer is using”.
You will be asked to register, which you can do if you would like to receive emails from Docker, or you can click the skip button.
What is Docker? When running BrainDrive on your computer, it runs in a Docker container. Docker is a very popular piece of free software that gives a standard environment for programs like BrainDrive that run on your computer. Instead of having to worry about what type of computer you’re on — Windows, Mac, what version, etc. — you just run Docker and Docker takes care of the rest.
Important: Docker needs to be running on your computer whenever you use BrainDrive. After you install it, you can find Docker in your Applications folder (Mac) or Start menu (Windows). Just click on it to open it. You’ll know it’s running when you see the Docker icon in your menu bar (Mac) or system tray (Windows). You only need to open it, it runs quietly in the background after that. Once you install Docker you do not need to be connected to the internet to use it, it runs locally on your computer.
Step 2: Install BrainDrive
The next step is to open the terminal on your computer and run 1 command.
If that sounds super technical, it’s not. If you can open an app and have ever copy-and-pasted text from one window to another, you can do it. Here we go.
On a Mac, open your Applications folder and click on the Utilities folder. You’ll find Terminal inside.
Click on Terminal to open it. It will look something like this:
If you’re not on a Mac or you don’t see Terminal, just Google “how to open a terminal on my computer”, it takes 30 seconds.
Now copy and paste this command into your terminal and hit enter:
Mac or Linux:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BrainDriveAI/BrainDrive/main/installer/bootstrap/install.sh | bash
Windows PowerShell:
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BrainDriveAI/BrainDrive/main/installer/bootstrap/install.ps1 | iex
That’s it. The installer will download and set up BrainDrive for you.
Step 3: Open Your BrainDrive
Now open your web browser and go to this address:
You should see your BrainDrive login page. This might look like a website, but it’s not, it’s running right on your computer. That address is your computer talking to itself. Your data isn’t going anywhere.
Bookmark that link now. That’s how you’ll open your BrainDrive every time you want to use it. Remember, Docker needs to be running first. If you click the bookmark and nothing loads, just open Docker from your Applications folder and try again.
Click Create account to set up your login. You’ll choose a username and password, that’s it.
This account is completely local. No information is sent to BrainDrive or anyone else. Your BrainDrive is running on your computer and stays on your computer. No one can access it without your permission, even us.
Step 4: Choose Your AI Model
When you first log in to your BrainDrive, you’ll land on the Settings page with the Default Model screen open. This is where you choose which AI model powers your BrainDrive.
You have 3 options here:
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BrainDrive Default - This is the easy button. Add a few dollars to your BrainDrive and you are up and running chatting with the model that we run for you. This is a cloud based model, so you have to be connected to the internet in order to use it. This is also one way we earn revenue to sustain the BrainDrive open source project.
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Ollama - Ollama is for people who have a powerful computer, and want to run AI models locally. This means you download the AI models you want to use to your computer. It is 100% free to run AI models locally on your own computer with BrainDrive. And it is also 100% private. Once you have downloaded the AI model(s) you want to use, you don’t even need an internet connection to use them. You can learn more about using Ollama in your BrainDrive here.
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OpenRouter - OpenRouter is a cloud based AI model aggregator. They offer access to 100’s of cloud based AI models via one API. You can learn more about using OpenRouter in your BrainDrive here.
The fastest way to get started is with the BrainDrive default.
It’s already selected and ready to go. All you need to do is add a few dollars in credits and you’re off and running. It costs a few cents per conversation and uses a high quality AI model.
If you click on Model Providers in the settings page sidebar, you’ll see where you can setup Ollama and/or OpenRouter if you prefer to go that route.
Since you can run multiple models with both Ollama and OpenRouter the default models page will allow you to select from available models once Ollama or OpenRouter are selected for your model provider.
You don’t need to set up OpenRouter or Ollama right now if you prefer to start with the BrainDrive Default easy button. You can switch anytime.
Congratulations! You are now up and running with your very own personal AI system!
An AI system that you can now begin to build a partnership with, one that helps you leverage AI to define and reach your goals.
An AI system whose power compounds for you, instead of for a Big Tech company.
Are you excited? Me too. Now let’s start defining and reaching those goals, which is the topic of the next lesson. I’ll see you there!