# Which decisions should stay local?
canonical_url: https://www.3.14financialcontents.com/en/culture-314/what-we-ask/which-decisions-should-stay-local/
markdown_url: https://www.3.14financialcontents.com/en/culture-314/what-we-ask/which-decisions-should-stay-local/index.md
language: en
content_type: note-question
status: published
description: The link drops at the worst possible moment, and whatever is decided then was already decided beforehand.

## Why it matters

Moving the decision to a server gives access to more context, more compute and better models. It also adds latency and a dependency that fails just when the environment becomes difficult.

Every decision moved off the device is a bet on connectivity in the worst case, not in the usual one.

## What we know so far

Safety and stopping stay local without argument. Long-range planning tolerates latency well. Between those two extremes, the criterion that has worked best for us is the time that can pass before the decision stops being valid.

A small local model that knows how to abstain turns out to be more useful than a large remote one that sometimes does not answer.

## What remains open

It remains open how to reconcile state when the link comes back and both sides have gone on deciding separately.

And how to evaluate a system whose behaviour depends on a network we do not control.

---

https://www.3.14financialcontents.com/llms-en.txt · https://www.3.14financialcontents.com/llms-full-en.txt