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.
Please tell me you aren’t using a carbon footprint argument, you know. The ones Oil companies use to blame us, a population of people for climate change, instead of take action against them, and their corporate buddies. Who are a single large contributor, if not the entire problem in and of itself.
Even though we’re probably very different in our beliefs I would agree that I don’t want things using GPU without my consent. But I don’t agree in justifying it or hatred of AI with carbon footprint rhetoric created by the companies who created this problem in the first place.
Please tell me you aren’t using a carbon footprint argument, you know. The ones Oil companies use to blame us, a population of people for climate change, instead of take action against them, and their corporate buddies. Who are a single large contributor, if not the entire problem in and of itself.
Even though we’re probably very different in our beliefs I would agree that I don’t want things using GPU without my consent. But I don’t agree in justifying it or hatred of AI with carbon footprint rhetoric created by the companies who created this problem in the first place.