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Can I run gpt2 on a Mac with 32 GB?

Yes

Its published weights (548 MB) fit in the 21.3 GB a Mac with 32 GB can use, with room for ≈ 1K tokens of context.

Full analysis of gpt2 Everything that runs on Mac with 32 GB Get the weights on Hugging Face
hf download openai-community/gpt2

Files and context on Mac with 32 GB

Each file of gpt2 (and of GGUF versions the site has analyzed), and how much context fits next to it, with the context cache in 16-bit or 8-bit.

FileSizeOn Mac with 32 GB Context (16-bit)Context (8-bit)
As published548 MBFits1K1K
4-bit (estimate)77.1 MBFits1K1K

gpt2 on other hardware

Popular models that run on Mac with 32 GB

Assumes 67% of the Mac's memory is usable (macOS's default limit for the GPU; it can be raised) and at least 4K tokens of context for one conversation, with the context cache in 16-bit unless noted. Fits leaves at least 20% of that memory for context; Tight leaves less.