[23558] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] BREAKING: [Why bother asking?] Google may have
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lauren Weinstein)
Tue May 5 15:50:34 2026
Date: Tue, 5 May 2026 12:40:26 -0700
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
To: privacy-dist@vortex.com
Message-ID: <20260505194026.GA15471@vortex.com>
Content-Disposition: inline
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; Format="flowed"
Errors-To: privacy-bounces+privacy-forum=mit.edu@vortex.com
BREAKING: [Why bother asking?] Google may have downloaded a 4GB AI
model to your system without asking or permission
Ah, the famous Google arrogance is back in full swing! Reports are
pouring in that Google has silently (why bother asking or informing?)
been downloading a 4GB local AI model to users as part of a Chrome
browser update. While in theory local AI is better than spy-heavy
cloud AI (Google warns that their conventional AI features send data
to Google AND may be viewed by [oh-so-trustworthy?] humans), 4GB
matters to a lot of people, especially on laptops with smallish SSDs.
A typical Chromebook for example may only have 64GB total and a big
chunk of that used by the OS! 128GB laptops are also common.
It appears that not everybody has received this massive AI model file.
It may only be downloaded when certain AI features are enabled. There
are various ways to check for this and to disable this feature, mostly
involving Chrome Settings->System and various Chrome internal settings
that most users don't ever play with. One of my Linux systems doesn't
seem to have this at all, while a browser on a new Mac Neo did, and I
apparently gained about 4GB of additional free space as soon as I
turned off the AI features that I never knew were turned on (since I
never touch any of them -- and that's my recommendation to you as
well).
We're back to the dark days of Google philosophy. Don't bother asking,
don't bother informing. Assume that 4GB doesn't matter to anybody.
You need a time machine to find "Don't be evil" with Google anymore.
A horrible shame.
L
- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Mastodon: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren
Signal: By request on need to know basis
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
_______________________________________________
privacy mailing list
https://lists.vortex.com/mailman/listinfo/privacy
