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.
That’s basically model routing, and has existed a while. Open AI’s GPT-5 and llama-swap do that, for example. If the task is simple, it uses a smaller, less intensive model, and only uses the slower, larger one of the task is more complex.
Though most tend to operate with models on the same device/service, rather than a model run elsewhere.
That’s basically model routing, and has existed a while. Open AI’s GPT-5 and llama-swap do that, for example. If the task is simple, it uses a smaller, less intensive model, and only uses the slower, larger one of the task is more complex.
Though most tend to operate with models on the same device/service, rather than a model run elsewhere.