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.
I didn’t write my comment to disagree with your point or to make a bad faith argument. I merely wanted to point out another thing that is of greater concern to me and most likely many others. That is in no way mutually exclusive to your point and doesn’t invalidate it. So get that snark out of here.
I frankly don’t think the amount of “trees being burnt” from posting a comment is relevant compared to the potential of hundreds of devices performing a unnecessary download. Hell, a billionaire’s carbon footprint in a couple seconds likely already far exceeds that. At least this conversation is going somewhere. In any case, this is an unquantifiable cost anyways.
I didn’t write my comment to disagree with your point or to make a bad faith argument. I merely wanted to point out another thing that is of greater concern to me and most likely many others. That is in no way mutually exclusive to your point and doesn’t invalidate it. So get that snark out of here.
I frankly don’t think the amount of “trees being burnt” from posting a comment is relevant compared to the potential of hundreds of devices performing a unnecessary download. Hell, a billionaire’s carbon footprint in a couple seconds likely already far exceeds that. At least this conversation is going somewhere. In any case, this is an unquantifiable cost anyways.