Google Chrome Might Have Installed an AI Model Onto Your Device Without You Knowing

You might not have asked for an AI model on your computer, but you might have gotten it anyway. Google Chrome has been installing a 4GB model onto devices without asking or notifying users.

Google has been installing Gemini Nano — an AI model that runs on devices like smartphones and laptops instead of in the cloud — onto some people’s Chrome browsers, without their permission, according to Alexander Hanff, a Swedish computer scientist and lawyer known as That Privacy Guy. And Google doesn’t tell you that it’s on your device after it’s installed.

Hanff said Gemini Nano will only be installed if the person’s device meets the hardware requirements. It’s unknown how many people have gotten the install.

Gemini Nano performs tasks such as detecting scam phone calls, helping you write text messages, summarizing recordings and analyzing Pixel phone screenshots. It’s not to be confused with the AI Mode pill in the address bar. If you use AI Mode, your queries are routed to Google Gemini servers — not to Gemini Nano.

A Google spokesperson told CNET that Gemini Nano will automatically uninstall if the device doesn’t have enough resources, such as processing power, RAM memory, storage space or network bandwidth. 

“In February, we began rolling out the ability for users to easily turn off and remove the model directly in Chrome settings,” the spokesperson said. “Once disabled, the model will no longer download or update.”

Google gives more information about on-device generative AI models in Chrome on this web page.

If you’re running Chrome, you might have Gemini Nano. Go to your file manager —  “File Explorer” for Windows, “Files” for Chromebooks, “Finder” for Macs — and search for a folder called “OptGuideOnDeviceModel.” In that folder, there will be a file called “weights.bin,” and that is where Gemini Nano lives.

Hanff said Chrome users will not know they have Gemini Nano unless they search for it, because “Chrome did not ask” and “Chrome does not surface it.”

If you want to get rid of Gemini Nano, there are a couple of ways. One is to uninstall Chrome entirely. The other way is to type “chrome://flags” into your browser address bar, then find “Enables optimization guide on device” and turn it off.

Why does it matter?

Hanff said the push might be intended to help Google cut costs by moving AI work off its own servers and onto your computer.

“Running inference on users’ own hardware allows them to push ‘AI features’ without the compute costs,” Hanff told CNET.

But Hanff suggested there could be legal ramifications, at least in Europe. He suggested that the Gemini Nano install could constitute a breach of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation’s principles of lawfulness, fairness and transparency. Hanff said that, considering the potential environmental impacts, Google should have announced it under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.

“Google has given us every reason not to trust them with a history spanning two decades of global privacy violations at massive scale,” Hanff told CNET. “So, I suspect they figured asking permission (what the law requires) would hinder their ability to push this model and, of course, whatever comes after it.”