Not even mentioning Schwartz was a huge indicator that this is a bullshit paid-for story from Reddit/Spez. Absolutely NOBODY who would bring up the founding of Reddit without mentioning Schwartz unless they were paid not to. This is a hack piece from a paid shill.

You're in luck! 2023 is Home Assistant's "year of voice" in which lots of development is being focused on a functional voice assistant that is run locally. Some links to what is available and what is in the works:

https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/

https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/voice_remote_local_assistant/

https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/thirteen-usd-voice-remote/

It's a lot of DIY still as there still isn't much of a market for voice assistant hardware that isn't already part of an existing platform (Google home, Alexa, Sonos, Siri, etc). There is much more out there but these should get you started.