Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise tooling, and an automatic re-download every time the user deletes it. The pattern is identical to the Anthropic Claude Desktop case I wrote about last month, but the scale is between two and three orders of magnitude larger. This article does the legal analysis and, for the first time, the environmental analysis. The numbers are not small.
Probably a ridiculous notion but personally I wouldn’t feel 100% sure my device isn’t joining a distributed bot net ai datacenter for other people’s slop generation, burning my energy, my battery, my ssd (higher temps shorten their half life) without my consent
How many trees to send some text? Lol, my aging phone depletes its battery more if I don’t use it xD
I just have a high level of distrust of FAANG, and of proprietary software; I still use most stuff I’m not very extreme in practice
Who’s to say that local LLM model won’t be used when we leave our device on standby, to ease a usage spike from other users? It’s technically possible, the things stopping many companies are the potential legal trouble (but there’s an ever longer TOS for that), different levels of morality, company culture, etc.; many botnets were from simple games installed by regular people connected on a residential line. Some VPNs have been caught using their clients line as an endpoint for other clients in different countries
You could say it’s a ridiculous thought for now regarding this “hidden” Gemini local LLM, I just feel like it’s a possibilty.
Probably a ridiculous notion but personally I wouldn’t feel 100% sure my device isn’t joining a distributed
bot netai datacenter for other people’s slop generation, burning my energy, my battery, my ssd (higher temps shorten their half life) without my consentHalf life? ;)
another strawman, it’s a local LLM, just using your phone means youre doing irresponsible damage. how many trees did you burn with this comment?
How many trees to send some text? Lol, my aging phone depletes its battery more if I don’t use it xD
I just have a high level of distrust of FAANG, and of proprietary software; I still use most stuff I’m not very extreme in practice
Who’s to say that local LLM model won’t be used when we leave our device on standby, to ease a usage spike from other users? It’s technically possible, the things stopping many companies are the potential legal trouble (but there’s an ever longer TOS for that), different levels of morality, company culture, etc.; many botnets were from simple games installed by regular people connected on a residential line. Some VPNs have been caught using their clients line as an endpoint for other clients in different countries
You could say it’s a ridiculous thought for now regarding this “hidden” Gemini local LLM, I just feel like it’s a possibilty.