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More on Google Chrome secretly forcing four gigabytes of local #genAI model onto your device, it is every bit as extreme as @gabrielesvelto points out, and much worse for the environment than we are even touching on:
https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chrome-silent-nano-install/
More on Google Chrome secretly forcing four gigabytes of local #genAI model onto your device, it is every bit as extreme as @gabrielesvelto points out, and much worse for the environment than we are even touching on:
https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chrome-silent-nano-install/
@gabrielesvelto I'd still think that shipping a local model is a better way to provide some features based on generative AI, than it would be to start sending more and more user input to be processed elsewhere.
Sending less data is one benefit, but local models also make the computational cost more transparent. And thus at least the user can make a better informed decision on if they want to use the features that use the model.
@gabrielesvelto The cost per bit is an invented metric though, isn't it? The cost to Google is in the hardware, which is already spent. Unless they've got caps somewhere that they need to work around, the cost for G to send 4GB vs sending nothing is roughly the same.
I'm no expert, of course...there is technically an upper limit to how much they could send, but I think it's unlikely (with their infrastructure) that they would reach it.
And, with billions bordering trillions of dollars to sink into any given endeavor, it will be some time before they feel the pinch.
As usual, it's the end users that will get screwed, especially if they're on metered connections.
@roknrol I don't think so, it's really a lot of data. We're talking exabytes here (milions of terabytes) to reach the entire Google Chrome user base. Google very much pays for bandwidth. This is from a few years ago: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/09/google-fights-latest-attempt-to-have-big-tech-pay-for-isps-network-upgrades/
They care enough about bandwidth to have developed not one but two custom binary patchers for shrinking Chrome updates (Courgette and Zucchini).
@gabrielesvelto Ah, fair enough, thank you. I clearly have not kept up.
@gabrielesvelto it's also curious that a 4GB model that can run on consumer hardware is useful enough to force onto every user of Chrome, and somehow the AI companies expect everyone to pay them for these services.
@gundersen indeed. But there is nothing rational about this market. It's all C-suite FOMO, vibes, smoke and mirrors.
@gabrielesvelto I think you are absolutely correct!
@gabrielesvelto This download is going to happen every time they update the blob isn't it?
@pwloftus yes. It's basically a bunch of sparse matrixes, that get recomputed every time you re-train the model. It's very unlikely that it will be amenable to binary patching or incremental updates.
@gabrielesvelto I bet it's actually cheap for Google. They have network caches (or used to at least for YT) very close to the ISPs, and this kind of payload is very cache friendly.
@fabrice it's still like 5-10 exabytes of extra bandwidth, and it's not going to be diff-friendly. They developed a new dedicated binary patcher to shrink Chrome updates (Zucchini) fairly recently so it can't be too cheap for them.
@fabrice and BTW I never thought I'd ever use the word exabytes.
@gabrielesvelto @fabrice ... watch a streaming service like Netfix? Every time you or anyone else watches a few 4K movies, that's 4GB downloaded. Every night, the streamers have hundreds of millions of users.
For better or worse mass distribution of 4GB is just "Tuesday" for Google in 2026 with or without the local model aspect.
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