{"id":476072,"date":"2026-05-09T08:05:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T08:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/476072\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T08:05:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T08:05:24","slug":"chromes-4gb-ai-model-isnt-new-but-youre-not-wrong-for-being-confused","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/476072\/","title":{"rendered":"Chrome&#8217;s 4GB AI model isn&#8217;t new, but you&#8217;re not wrong for being confused"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A curious omission<\/p>\n<p>Google users were more willing to excuse AI in 2024, but the backlash is real in 2026. People are increasingly looking to avoid AI features, which makes this 4GB stealth download all the more questionable. Google\u2019s obsession with AI has led to numerous stumbles, even when the company has ostensibly good intentions, because we are all (rightly!) hyper-focused on how this technology is impacting our lives.<\/p>\n<p>Some of those \u201cgood intentions\u201d seem to have made the Chrome situation worse. As users sought ways to remove this AI model, many looked for the settings toggle. This happened to coincide with the wide release of Chrome 148, and the label for this toggle included a pretty suspicious change versus v147.<\/p>\n<p>            <a class=\"cursor-zoom-in\" data-pswp-width=\"1392\" data-pswp-height=\"504\" data-pswp- data-cropped=\"false\" href=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Chrome-AI-147-148.png\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n              <img width=\"1392\" height=\"504\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Chrome-AI-147-148.png\" class=\"fullwidth full\" alt=\"Chrome AI toggles\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  \/><br \/>\n            <\/a><\/p>\n<p>              Google claims this change was made to be clear about how Chrome\u2019s APIs work.<\/p>\n<p>\n                  Credit:<br \/>\n                                      Ryan Whitwam\n                                  <\/p>\n<p>\n      Google claims this change was made to be clear about how Chrome\u2019s APIs work.<\/p>\n<p>          Credit:<\/p>\n<p>          Ryan Whitwam<\/p>\n<p>Google removed the stipulation that its on-device AI model would not send data to Google\u2019s servers. This is alarming, as one of the primary benefits of local AI is its greater privacy. We reached out to Google to ask if this wording is due to a change in Chrome\u2019s on-device AI.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis doesn\u2019t reflect a change to how we handle on-device AI for Chrome,\u201d a Google spokesperson said. \u201cThe data that is passed to the model is processed solely on device.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Google, the team decided to make this change earlier in 2026 to ensure it was being crystal clear about how AI works on the web. Chrome\u2019s local AI <a href=\"https:\/\/developer.chrome.com\/docs\/ai\/understand-built-in-model-management\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">has an API<\/a> that a site might use, for example, to do summarization or edit your writing. In these instances, the website would naturally see the input and output. If it\u2019s a Google website, that data ends up on Google\u2019s servers. If it\u2019s a non-Google site, Google doesn\u2019t see any of that data.<\/p>\n<p>That explanation may or may not be satisfying as the backlash against AI grows. Regardless, using the web is never completely private. If you\u2019re uncertain about using AI tools on a site, you should always try to parse its privacy policy, which will tell you how your data (AI-generated or not) will be used. As long as Google is deploying AI as an opt-out service, you\u2019ll have to be extra vigilant.<\/p>\n<p>As the saying goes, it\u2019s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, but Google ought to be asking for permission a little more often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A curious omission Google users were more willing to excuse AI in 2024, but the backlash is real&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,18,19,17,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-476072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116543587938511132","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}