3,500,000,000 Computers Have AI SECRETLY Installed On Them!

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]3.5 billion devices have AI secretly [snorts] installed on them. What am I talking about? Let's find out. So, if you watch this channel at all, you will know that in recent times I've covered this whole AI trend of Microsoft, Cononical, and others installing AI onto desktops. However, what you might not be aware of is there's a whole new company in on the game, Google, who have decided that with Google Chrome, they're going to install a AI model. It's about 4 GB on every single device that runs Google Chrome. Meaning we're talking about 3 and a half billion devices so far. So, let's first of all look at the screen.

[00:00:54]So if you remember um I covered recently the whole cononical and abuntu situation where iuntu was going to have AI integration in the upcoming year this year in fact and it was going to have like a gentic workflows this kind of explicit and something other um AI setup but basically what we're looking at is Auntu are going to do the whole co-pilot model with Microsoft And really nobody asks for this. Nobody really wants this and certainly no Linux user truly asks this. I know there's some exceptions but generally this is not how Linux users think. Okay. But nonetheless that's Auntu's route and I covered this. I did a video on this. Okay.

[00:01:42]So what's happening now then? Why is after Microsoft Microsoft as Microsoft is the preferred name and Abuntu and others that are so badly implemented AI and it's become so unpopular in these devices? Why is Google Chrome now following suit? Well, let's have a look at this article. So, Guy finds Google Chrome is quietly installing a 4 GB AI model on our devices.

[00:02:11]And uh so Google Chrome is silently installing a 4 GB AI model on each of our devices without consent, says Alexander H, a prominent computer scientist and lawyer. According to him, that's both illegal and extremely costly for the climate.

[00:02:29]H said on his blog he's discovered that Chrome is reaching into users machines and writing a 4 GBTE ondevice AI model file to disk without asking. The name is weights stop.bin and it lives in the optg guide ondevice model. Essentially it's waits for Gemini Nano Google's ondevice large language model. Moreover, the file appeared with no consent prompt. H says there's no check box in the Chrome settings labeled download 4 GB AI model. The download triggers when Chrome's AI features are active and of course those features are active by default in recent Chrome versions.

[00:03:11]Chrome did not ask. Chrome does not surface it. If the user deletes it, Chrome redownloads it. H rages. An engineering team at the large AI vendor decided that the user's machine is a deployment service to be optimized for the vendor's product roadmap, not a personal device whose owner is the legal authority on what runs there.

[00:03:32]>> [snorts] >> Now, we've seen this already, of course, because like I just said, Microsoft with the Windows 11 operating system co-pilot effectively, nobody truly truly wants it. I know that the Apple uh sorry, the Microsoft um board members want to, you know, prove to the shareholders that they're creating this incredible thing that's now in Windows 11 because hey, they spent hundreds of billions already on AI types things on these AI models on C-pilot, etc. They've got to justify it, right? They've got to prove in some arbitrary way. They've got to create a spreadsheet that says so many billions of devices have some kind of AI model. The AI revolution is working.

[00:04:22]Everybody's doing it. So, everybody's got it. So, you know, here's your dividends. Everybody's happy. Stock and shares go up. All good in the world. The thing is, it's created a huge backlash.

[00:04:34]Microsoft's Windows operating system, it appears, has never been less popular.

[00:04:38]Um, you know, you've got things like Omari and others as, you know, just this general antipathy to the whole situation with proprietary systems. I mean, Mac OS specifically of March, but, you know, Microsoft recently, which I did a video on, you know, basically said 400 million devices are now useless. The scrap heap, buy a new device if you want Windows 11 because you're not allowed to upgrade.

[00:05:04]perfectly good Linux devices, but nonetheless, the likelihood is none of those or any real amount will go get upgraded. And here's the thing, this is all about appeasing shareholders is not about users. It doesn't matter what you want. If you don't have control of your device, which is becoming ever more increasingly difficult to do is to keep control of a computer device outside of the hands of Microsoft, outside the hands of Apple and others. And Linux is the last sort of frontier of this. But this is what these huge companies are all about. They don't care about users.

[00:05:38]They care about giving dividends to shareholders, making the stocks go up, etc. So, the computer scientist has calculated that the total install time from directory creation's final move is only 14 minutes and 28 seconds. The human user doesn't need to do anything and only finds out about the download months later when their disc fills up.

[00:05:58]Classically, while adding the file disc takes zero clicks, removing it takes multiple steps, none of which our document even hinted at in Chrome. H points out a couple of weeks ago, H also said that Anthropic was secretly installing what he called spyware on users who are installing claw desktop using the AI company accusing the AI company of directly directly breaching the EU's e privacy directive as well as multiple computer access and misuse laws. According to the research, the legal implementations implications of this particular case around Google Chrome could be similar.

[00:06:34]But there's more. Simply because Google browser is just so much more popular than any clawed application, at least for now. At Chrome scale, the climate bill for one model push paid in atmospheric CO2 by the entire planet is around 6,000 to 60,000 tons of CO2 equivalent emissions depending on how many devices received the push. Well, you know, again, that's one way to look at it. Of course, this has been the big push. I mean, my idea is that yay, you know, three and a half billion devices so far are getting this AI model or have got this AI model. So, you know, there's another way to measure it that, you know, is without consent. This is the environmental cost of one of the one company unilaterally deciding that two billion people's default browser will mass distribute a 4 GBTE binary they did not request. Now, two billion is an underestimate. I'll show you why in a minute. All Google have done is ask the researcher believes. Oh, sorry. All Google should have done is ask the researcher believes. Here's how the choice could have been presented to the user. Chrome would like to download a 4 GB AI model file to your device to power the following features. Allow skit decide later. If Google's next Chrome update silently removes the unconented installs and replaces the behavior with an explicit optin, we know the company can read the room. H concludes, if it does not, we will know the company published positions on responsible AI and sustainability are actually worth.

[00:08:05]So here's the thing. One way or another, you'll get an AI. You get an AI in your computer. You get an AI in your browser.

[00:08:11]You cannot escape it. This is all delaying the inevitable. Really the last safe place is Linux with the exception I mean it's BSD of course but with the exception of Auntu of course which clearly are all going on the same route and who knows what will be next Fedora Debian etc. So yeah, you know, it's becoming ever harder to avoid, you know, keeping the cash tools running for the boardrooms at big tech companies and their shareholders. You cannot escape it at this point. Everything's becoming locked in, locked down, age verification. I've done so many videos on these types of things. And uh there you go. Here's another nail in the um computer device coffin because you have no control anymore effectively. So um let's have a quick look at some of the share of market. So Google Chrome is 67% technically on this measure which you know these measures aren't always absolute but it's the majority browser.

[00:09:10]And um if we look at this here how many people is that? So we're looking at around 3.62 billion. Okay. I would just say 3.5 but 3.62. So that's a huge number. Okay. And of course, here's the main article. This is the researcher, Alexander H. I'll put this all in the description if you want to read this down below because uh it's quite a long read, but I gave you the nice summary there. So, yeah, again, you're losing control of your device and uh it's becoming fewer ways to get out of it.

[00:09:46]Linux is one of the few places. So, um I'll leave it there. So you know what to do with the fake YouTube. Like, comment, subscribe, and if you want to become a Patreon on the channel, like these two guys, Soul and Sean, thank you guys very much supporting the channel. They get some nice perks like early access videos and their name on the end of the screen.

[00:10:06]So, uh, have a look in the description.

[00:10:08]All the information is there for, uh, the Patreon. And, uh, yeah, I'll, uh, see you in the next one.