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

thatprivacyguy.com

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

#621

Post by doginasuit »

etothet wrote: post #316
doginasuit wrote: post #278

"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.

There is, however, precedent for software alerting/asking the user to install “extras” or utility packs and showing the disk size that content will take up and even allowing the user to choose a location to store such things. Creative software does this all the time. There’s nothing stopping Google Chrome from doing something similar except, I suspect, Google knows or feels it will result in many fewer installs of it…

That's a good point. "Downloads a 4GB LLM model without notice" would get a good amount of attention and be an accurate representation of the situation. The article undermines itself by misrepresenting the problem.

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

#622

Post by newsoftheday »

Schiendelman wrote: post #360
x3ro wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 judgemen…

This is about the same as each of those people streaming a movie to their TV. There's no there there.

They do that anyway, so it's in addition to that which is the parent's point.

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

#623

Post by jchw »

kaptainscarlet wrote: post #603
jchw wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's additional software that many users didn't ask for, don't want and will not be aware of. Reminds me a bit of back when installing software was a minefield due to all of the integrated "promotions" for things like toolbars, only now they've vertically integrated the unwanted software, cutting out the middleman. Honestly, for most features you could justifiably say its fine. I mean honestly, how large is an Englis…

An AI is not additional software. Infact, a model is not software.

How does that change anything? It doesn't matter if you categorize it as software or not, unwanted is unwanted. And frankly I just flatly disagree, you could certainly make the case that model weights are a form of software.

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

#624

Post by knappa »

kaptainscarlet wrote: post #603
jchw wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's additional software that many users didn't ask for, don't want and will not be aware of. Reminds me a bit of back when installing software was a minefield due to all of the integrated "promotions" for things like toolbars, only now they've vertically integrated the unwanted software, cutting out the middleman. Honestly, for most features you could justifiably say its fine. I mean honestly, how large is an Englis…

An AI is not additional software. Infact, a model is not software.

It's not processor op-codes, but sure it's part of the software. You wouldn't say that a set of precomputed weights in a numerical integrator aren't part of the software, would you? Or say that the graphics in a game aren't part of the software?

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

#625

Post by thorum »

crazygringo wrote: post #560

Framing this as needing "consent" is deeply misguided. It's as silly as claiming that Microsoft Word installed an English language spellcheck dictionary without your consent. It's just part of the software. You consented to installing the software and having it autoupdate. That covers it. Now we can argue whether or not it's an appropriate amount of disk space or bandwidth to use, but that's just a reasonable practic…

You’re probably right in a literal technical sense, but a very large number of people (maybe most?) would choose “no” if properly informed and asked for consent, and lots of people are morally opposed even in principle to downloading a large AI model onto their computer. I’m not one of them, but they’re out there. So in a cultural sense, it is different.

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

#626

Post by dbgobrrr »

coldtea wrote: post #404
dist-epoch wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, which is why I use paid-for OSes and browsers, instead of free ones like Linux or Firefox. I don't want to be the product.

With Linux you can control up to the detail any auto-update, and any update in general, all the way to being able to inspect the code.

With GNU/Linux, yes. With Android/Linux, not so much. [1]

(I used to dislike this "GNU/Linux" term, it seemed unimportant - Android showed me why the GNU part of it is)

[1] https://keepandroidopen.org/

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

#627

Post by dml2135 »

caymanjim wrote: post #511

...so what? If Chrome had installed 4GB for some other tooling that most people don't need, would anyone care? My operating system installs with a million default packages that I don't need. Users install applications with optional features all the time. Applications install additional tooling so that they'll function all the time. To the other point: of course Claude Desktop modifies the browser--that's how it works…

> If Chrome had installed 4GB for some other tooling that most people don't need, would anyone care?

Of course I would. It’s already the largest application on my computer, and I only keep it around for when a site doesn’t render right in Firefox.

This kind of size increase clearly pushes it over the line for me and it’s getting uninstalled.

Have you seen SSD prices recently?

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

#628

Post by Diti »

shimman wrote: post #454
bityard wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you okay with a 1 GB chrome install suddenly becoming a 5 GB chrome install on all your machines, without your permission or knowledge, for functionality you may or may not want?

Yes because in their mind corporate power is the only thing that matters in our lives. Not what people want, but what Google wants is clearly the only thing that matters for them. It's a bizarre way of living your life.

They aren’t wrong, though. There is no incentive for Google to do anything else if 75 % of web users keep using Chrome no matter what happens to it.

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

#630

Post by Diti »

SirFatty wrote: post #537
coldtea wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No weird: accurate. It IS a silent install. I wanted a browser, not an LLM.

Completely missing the point. https://share.google/aimode/WOJL4sf0GK2Vyi6kA

What is this link supposed to be doing? Does it need desktop Chrome to run, maybe?
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