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Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

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Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#271

Post by glenstein »

avazhi wrote: post #247
heavyset_go wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been consuming 15+ years of anti-Mozilla rants anytime it or Firefox are mentioned online. It's how you get things like "Browser monocultures are an issue, so don't use Chrome (Blink), use Brave (Chromium (Blink)) instead!" said in earnest.

I’ve been using Firefox for 20+ years and continue to do so, but let’s not pretend that Firefox hasn’t been an embarrassing shit show for most of the past 15.

People keep saying this like it's just conventional wisdom we all supposedly agree with. I think it's a string of tech articles and spiraling comment sections searching for drama that's kind of been a self-perpetuating phenomenon over the past 3 or 4 years the majority of which I think has been extremely unfair and mostly just based on vibes. If you actually scroll through HN and read the criticisms, they tend to trail off into vague phrases like "all the stuff they've been doing".

If people read the release notes instead of the comment sections, not only would they have a lot more specific knowledge of the work going into the browser but they wouldn't be locked in this cycle of outrage and escalation that normally you only see in YouTube comment sections.

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#272

Post by derangedHorse »

Does anyone else find the writing in the article to be overdramatic? Including a 4gb is a negligible amount of space for current hardware and Chrome is not known as the browser to run on resource constrained devices. To put 4gb in context, I currently have 2 *tabs* open that nearly take up 4gb. The fact Chrome also has a way to disable this makes it kind of a nothingburger in my opinion.

> The roughly 4 GB × N devices of disk-storage cost, sustained, on user hardware. SSDs have a per-GB embodied carbon cost of approximately 0.16 kg CO2e per GB of NAND manufactured [18]

The estimated environmental aspect of the download also seems like an overblown point, noted for sensationalism. There are always hand-wavy numbers involved and I had to look no further than the quote above to find evidence of this. The reference for [18], "The dirty secret of SSDs: embodied carbon", incorrectly links to "Toward Carbon-Aware Networking" and makes no mention of the environmental cost of SSDs. After looking up "The Dirty Secret of SSDs: Embodied Carbon" myself, I was able to see the same methodologies as I was expecting used [1].

> We conducted an analysis encompassing 94 Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) reports, which collectively quantify the embodied cost of SSDs. Owing to the scarcity of direct and up-to-date LCA studies focused specifically on SSDs. We compiled a dataset comprising LCA reports pertaining to Server, Workstation, Desktop, Laptop, and Chromebook products, all of which feature SSDs

All these studies rely on metrics extrapolated from layered assumptions and end up being used by those who try to use them as objective numbers.

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.10793

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#273

Post by Zekio »

derangedHorse wrote: post #272

Does anyone else find the writing in the article to be overdramatic? Including a 4gb is a negligible amount of space for current hardware and Chrome is not known as the browser to run on resource constrained devices. To put 4gb in context, I currently have 2 *tabs* open that nearly take up 4gb. The fact Chrome also has a way to disable this makes it kind of a nothingburger in my opinion. > The roughly 4 GB × N device…

4gb isn't really a negligible amount, given the amount of desktops and laptops sold with just a 256gb ssd

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#274

Post by dspillett »

dickeeT wrote: post #250
chinathrow wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox.

is it as greedy as chrome for the ram?

In my recent experience: definitely yes, though not significantly worse. Unless you have [many] hundreds of tabs open (which I do as I have neither executive function nor organisational skills), or have a machine with very limited RAM, I don't think you'll notice a difference.

This is anecdata, of course, take with a pinch of your preferred flavouring powder.

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#275

Post by CamelCaseCondo »

bcjdjsndon wrote: post #258
CamelCaseCondo wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which ullustrates that humanity has reached such numbers that the smallest collective change has an enormous impact.

How do you propose maintaining the living conditions you've become accustomed to without the system we have currently, as shit as it is?

There’s the problem: we want change without giving up the things we’re accustomed to. We’re locked in.

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#276

Post by x3ro »

TheServitor wrote: post #23

Framing 4GB of data moving in a world of petabytes of traffic as a specific environmental disaster is kind of a stretch, regardless of whether we want the model.

Chrome is used by about 3.8 billion people [1]. So, if this is rolled out to every chrome user over the next year or two, this would generate about 15 Exabytes of traffic. It's difficult to find accurate, useful numbers on this, but lets assume 29 grams of CO2e per GB, this would be about 450k tons of CO2e. This in turn, equates to average household CO2 expenditure of almost 300k households.

So make your own judgement, but this seem pretty significant to me.

[1]: https://www.aboutchromebooks.com/global-chrome-user-base/ [2]: https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-carbon-footprint-of-str... [3]: https://www.anthesisgroup.com/insights/what-exactly-is-1-ton...

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#277

Post by zeafoamrun »

TheServitor wrote: post #23

Framing 4GB of data moving in a world of petabytes of traffic as a specific environmental disaster is kind of a stretch, regardless of whether we want the model.

Agreed, my eyes rolled hard at that. Definitely more of an F-U to users with bad connections than anything else.

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#278

Post by doginasuit »

"Silently installs" is misleading. They are including a file in the package which is presumably related to the functionality of the software. I don't use chrome for a long list of reasons but it is not standard or expected to get consent for that.

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#279

Post by derangedHorse »

salviati wrote: post #54
TheServitor wrote: post #23

Framing 4GB of data moving in a world of petabytes of traffic as a specific environmental disaster is kind of a stretch, regardless of whether we want the model.

Your word might be of petabytes of traffic. Some people have slow lines. Some people have metered Internet subscriptions. Not everyone has access to the same infrastructure you have.

It's somewhat known that Chrome isn't catering to those users. They aim to deliver feature-rich experiences rather than be the de-facto browser for resource-constrained devices.

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#280

Post by ssss11 »

toyg wrote: post #234

How hard would have been to add a simple message, warning people about it and offering to opt out? Most would have clicked OK without reading anyway, and Google could pretend they give a shit about users. Unless they expected blowback, and that kind of message is the "compromise" they want to eventually land on.

Because we must get what the tech overlords want us to get, not what we want to get.
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