FIELD NOTE / INSTAGRAM
Route workloads by five properties.
The short film, the complete written thought, and the evidence behind it.
Route workloads by five properties.
Video caption
Route workloads by five properties.
A busy shop floor and a rare exception need different service.
Pin the models, hardware and full acceptance path.
Escalation is part of the design.
#EricFieldNotes
Full written post / accessibility read
Before choosing where an AI task runs, write down five properties: required answer quality, privacy boundary, latency budget, concurrency and recovery tolerance. Without them, 'local is cheaper' and 'cloud is smarter' are both shortcuts.
In an illustrative plant-support workflow, a gateway handles routine short event labels locally and keeps raw state on site. A rare incident needs broader context and careful review. Sending every routine event remote adds network dependency; forcing every exception local risks poor judgment.
Use representative data that can legally cross each boundary. Test cold and warm latency, peak concurrency, task-specific correctness, recovery after lost connectivity and operator rescue. Price the complete accepted response, not a model call or device hour.
Keep bounded private work local when it passes; use a hosted or owner review path when the task, load or uncertainty demands it. Do this because the optimal split can change with workload and the cost of being wrong.
#EricFieldNotes
Four-beat scene transcript
1. Route workloads by five properties.
Before choosing where an AI task runs, write down five properties: required answer quality, privacy boundary, latency budget, concurrency and recovery tolerance. Without them, 'local is cheaper' and 'cloud is smarter' are both shortcuts.
Visual: Local and cloud solve different constraints.
2. The wrong route hurts a specific slice.
In an illustrative plant-support workflow, a gateway handles routine short event labels locally and keeps raw state on site. A rare incident needs broader context and careful review. Sending every routine event remote adds network dependency; forcing every exception local risks poor judgment.
Visual: A busy shop floor and a rare exception need different service.
3. Measure all five on real cases.
Use representative data that can legally cross each boundary. Test cold and warm latency, peak concurrency, task-specific correctness, recovery after lost connectivity and operator rescue. Price the complete accepted response, not a model call or device hour.
Visual: Pin the models, hardware and full acceptance path.
4. Choose a route per case class.
Keep bounded private work local when it passes; use a hosted or owner review path when the task, load or uncertainty demands it. Do this because the optimal split can change with workload and the cost of being wrong.
Visual: Escalation is part of the design.
Research and claim limits
- Moonshot AI: Kimi K3 official model card (S128)
- Apple: current Mac mini technical specifications (S129)
The examples identified as illustrative or simulated are design probes, not reported incidents. Vendor specifications do not establish workload performance.