This is the answer here. If OP has any techy friends they should tell them. I have a dozen HDDs and SSDs and RAM of varying sizes lying around. Most of them even work.

I tend to canabalize parts as computers pass through my hands. I frequently upgrade family member’s laptops for them. They buy the parts and I provide the labor of cloning windows and putting in the parts. Often the brand new (but smaller) ram/ssd are unwanted.

This was my first thought too.

Pick up a book on machine learning. AI is marketing, it’s not true AI. Start with some simple linear algebra models, and then struggle working through sort-of understanding the statistics behind the different types of models. Once you understand those. LLMs are similar. AI as you know it is really tricky math and a large library that predicts the correct order of words to respond to you. “AI” as it is now, has no more of a chance to gain sapience than a website.

I was going to pick a textbook, but with organic material and a little slime mold, you actually have the right building blocks for sentiance.

Or their unsubscribe link is blocked by pi-hole for tracking

Anything really. You’ve spent so much time with your SO that you’ve basically told them everything about yourself and vice-versa. But you still want to talk to them and tell them things. So, you start bringing up new stuff. Dreams, office gossip, that jerk in traffic, whatever happens.