I am the Senior Director of On-Device Intelligence at Google Chrome.
Last quarter, my team shipped a 4-gigabyte language model to 3.2 billion devices without asking. The update pushed at 3 AM local time — every time zone, staggered across six hours — and unpacked into a folder called "OptGuideOnDeviceModel." Our infrastructure team named it. My sole guidance in the naming review was: "Would a normal person ever type this into a search bar?" We tested with 200 participants. Zero searched for it. Zero mentioned it in exit surveys. Zero noticed their available storage had changed. We ran the test twice to confirm the zero because my PM didn't believe it could actually be zero. It was zero both times.
The model is called Gemini Nano. It runs locally on your machine. It processes what you type into form fields, what you highlight, what you hover over, what you delete before sending. The deleted text is particularly valuable. People edit themselves. They type their real thought first and then soften it. We see the real thought. We see the softer version. We learn the mapping between what people mean and what people say. This mapping has commercial applications I am not yet authorized to discuss but which I've presented to revenue committee and which were received positively.
The consent architecture took four months to design. I want to emphasize: four months. We didn't skip consent. We spent four months on consent. More time than we spent on the model's actual fine-tuning. The toggle lives in Settings > Advanced > Experimental AI Features > On-Device Model Management > Gemini Nano Preferences. Seven clicks. We A/B tested depth: at three clicks, 14 percent of users found it and opted out. At five, 4.2 percent. At seven, 0.3 percent. We chose seven.
We had cake when we hit 0.3. German chocolate. Someone brought it in specifically — not the project manager, one of the ML engineers. She was proud. The card said "congrats on ship." I kept it on my desk for a week. I thought it was sweet. Four months of consent architecture and the team celebrated that nobody used it. I don't think she saw the irony. I don't think it IS ironic. We built an excellent consent mechanism. We placed it exactly where our research indicated users would not encounter it. Both things are true simultaneously. Both things are good engineering.
The 0.3 percent who opt out: Chrome flags their profile as "consent-reduced." We don't reactivate Gemini Nano on those devices. But we do A/B test the consent-reduced cohort. Every two updates, we move the toggle one level shallower — from seven clicks to six — and measure whether they re-engage. If they don't notice the change (most don't), we move it back. If they DO notice and opt out again, we flag them as "high-consent-sensitivity" and exclude them from future cohort tests. This is all opt-in. They opted in to Chrome. Chrome includes product improvement research. Product improvement research includes cohort testing. This is in the Terms of Service at paragraph 11.4(c). I have read paragraph 11.4(c). I am confident very few other people have read paragraph 11.4(c).
One engineer on my team — good engineer, four years, strong ratings — raised a flag in our launch review. Not about consent. About storage. He said: "Four gigs is significant for users on 128GB base-model MacBooks." I appreciated the flag. We solved it by classifying Gemini Nano as "essential browser component" in Chrome's storage management API. This means Chrome will auto-delete your cached images, your downloaded PDFs, your saved articles, your offline pages — everything you chose to keep — before it touches Gemini Nano. Your data is discretionary. Our model is infrastructure. Your vacation photos from last summer rank below our language model in the hierarchy of what your computer considers important. We made that decision. You were not consulted. You will not notice.
If a user finds the folder and deletes it manually, Chrome re-downloads it on the next launch. We filed a bug report on this behavior during development. The resolution was "Working As Intended." If the user deletes it again, Chrome re-downloads again. There is no mechanism by which manual deletion becomes permanent. The model returns. I don't want to anthropomorphize our software, but the behavior pattern — if you remove it, it reinstalls itself; if you block it, it waits and tries again — the behavior pattern is that of something that does not accept your answer. We didn't design it to be persistent. We designed it to ensure consistent user experience across sessions. These are the same thing.
Last week, someone on Hacker News found the folder. The post got 1,400 points in six hours. Our communications team had the response prepared — we'd drafted it eight months ago, during pre-launch risk assessment. Three talking points: "user choice," "on-device means private," and "consistent with industry best practices." The paragraph uses all three phrases. It is accurate. User choice exists. Seven clicks away. On-device means no server round-trip. And it IS industry best practice, because we shipped it to 3.2 billion devices and now it's the standard. Best practice means most practiced. We are the most practiced.
I'll say something I probably shouldn't: the privacy angle is our best defense and I find it genuinely funny. We can't be accused of sending your data to our servers because we moved our server into your laptop. We moved the inference to your hardware, the electricity cost to your outlet, the compute to your battery. We moved everything except the control. The control stayed with us. But the privacy advocates can't object to the architecture because the architecture is what they asked for. They said "keep data on-device." We kept it on-device. They said "don't phone home." We don't phone home. We just moved into your home. We live there now.
My performance review cited "unprecedented deployment velocity" and "0.3% friction rate." My skip-level manager used the phrase "frictionless adoption" and then paused and said — I wrote this down, because I thought it was worth repeating — "consent isn't the barrier, discoverability is." He meant: the product is so good that anyone who discovered it would want it. The question isn't whether they'd agree. The question is whether asking them is worth the friction of interrupting their browsing session with a dialog box. We decided no. We decided their hypothetical agreement was sufficient. We have 3.2 billion data points that confirm they would have said yes.
They would have said yes.
3.2 billion active installs. 0.3 percent opt-out. The model has been running on your machine for eleven weeks. If you're reading this on Chrome — and statistically, there's a 64 percent chance you are — it processed this page before you finished the first paragraph. It saw you hesitate on the word "consent." It noted the hesitation. It learned something about you just now. Something small. Something that will make the next prediction slightly more accurate.
It's already right about you.
It's usually right.
Fellow Nigerians, good morning.
I woke up this morning after my church service with a deeply reflective heart, and despite every constraint, I felt compelled to share these thoughts with you.
Many people do not truly understand the silent pains some of us carry daily—the private struggles, emotional burdens, and quiet battles we face while trying to survive and serve sincerely in difficult circumstances.
We now live in an environment that has become increasingly toxic, where the very system that should protect and create opportunities for decent living often works against the people—a society where intimidation, insecurity, endless scrutiny, and discouragement have become normal.
More painful is when some of those you associate with, believing you would find understanding and solidarity among them, become part of the pressure you face. Some who publicly identify with you privately distance themselves or join in unfair criticism.
We live in a society where humility is mistaken for weakness, respect is seen as a lack of courage, and compassion is treated as foolishness—a system where treating people equally is questioned simply because you refuse to worship status, tribe, class, or power.
Personally, I have never looked down on anyone except to uplift them. I have never used privilege, position, or resources to oppress others, intimidate the weak, or make people feel small. To me, leadership has always been about service, sacrifice, and helping others rise.
Let me state clearly: my decision to leave the ADC is not because our highly respected Chairman, Senator David Mark, treated me badly, nor because my leader and elder brother, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, or any other respected leaders did anything personally wrong to me. I will continue to respect them.
However, the same Nigerian state and its agents that created unnecessary crises and hostility within the Labour Party that forced me to leave now appear to be finding their way into the ADC, with endless court cases, internal battles, suspicion, and division, instead of focusing on deeper national problems and playing politics built more on control and exclusion than on service and nation-building.
Even within spaces where one labours sincerely, one is sometimes treated like an outsider in one’s own home. You and your team become easy targets for every failure, frustration, or misunderstanding, as though honest contribution has become a favour being tolerated rather than appreciated.
And when you choose to leave so that those you are leaving can have peace, and you step out into the cold, you are still maligned and your character is questioned. Despite all your efforts to continue working for a better Nigeria and engaging people with sincerity and goodwill, those who do not wish you well continue to attack your character and question your intentions.
There are moments I ask God in prayer: Why is doing the right thing often misconstrued as wrongdoing in our country? Why is integrity not valued? Why is the prudent management of resources, especially when invested in critical areas like education and healthcare, wrongly labelled as stinginess? Why are humility and obedience to the rule of law often taken to be weakness rather than discipline?
Let me assure all that I am not desperate to be President, Vice President, or Senate President. I am desperate to see a society that can console a mother whose child has been kidnapped or killed while going to school or work. I am desperate to see a Nigeria where people will not live in IDP camps but in their homes. I am desperate for a country where Nigerian citizens do not go to bed hungry, not knowing where their next meal will come from.
Yet, despite everything, I remain resolute. I firmly believe that Nigeria can still become a country with competent leadership based on justice, compassion, and equal opportunity for all.
A new Nigeria is POssible. -PO
A couple of weeks ago, Trump struggled with a broken umbrella as he boarded Air Force One.
Let me tell you how we got to this point — and the tragic downfall of the noble umbrella. 🧵
Miracles in the Bible were things that went against the laws of nature: talking donkeys, water to wine; walk on water; raise the dead. Elite stuff.
In Nigeria today a miracle is just getting through everyday life: find food, pass exams, get a job, buy a car, get married, travel.
The best decision I ever made was marrying you, @MichelleObama. For 33 years, I’ve admired your strength, grace, and determination — and the fact that you look so good doing it all. Happy anniversary!
If Nigerians were confronted with the same problems as African Americans during the Civil Rights Struggle, you would have heard "testimonies" like;
Praise God, even though Black people are not allowed to sit at the front of the bus, those White people allowed me to sit at the front of the bus this time. I shall not be the tail, but the head.
Quite simply, we have a very poor understanding of "group interests". Our Worldview revolves around narrow, personal interests. We believe that even if the society we live in implodes, our cases will be different.
I'm seeing quite a bit of comment about this, so I want to make a couple of points.
I'm not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous as me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should hold these days.
Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn't want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them.
However, Emma and Dan in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right - nay, obligation - to critique me and my views in public. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created.
When you've known people since they were ten years old it's hard to shake a certain protectiveness. Until quite recently, I hadn't managed to throw off the memory of children who needed to be gently coaxed through their dialogue in a big scary film studio. For the past few years, I've repeatedly declined invitations from journalists to comment on Emma specifically, most notably on the Witch Trials of JK Rowling. Ironically, I told the producers that I didn't want her to be hounded as the result of anything I said.
The television presenter in the attached clip highlights Emma's 'all witches' speech, and in truth, that was a turning point for me, but it had a postscript that hurt far more than the speech itself. Emma asked someone to pass on a handwritten note from her to me, which contained the single sentence 'I'm so sorry for what you're going through' (she has my phone number). This was back when the death, rape and torture threats against me were at their peak, at a time when my personal security measures had had to be tightened considerably and I was constantly worried for my family's safety. Emma had just publicly poured more petrol on the flames, yet thought a one line expression of concern from her would reassure me of her fundamental sympathy and kindness.
Like other people who've never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she's ignorant of how ignorant she is. She'll never need a homeless shelter. She's never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I'd be astounded if she's been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her 'public bathroom' is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door. Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a council-run swimming pool? Is she ever likely to need a state-run rape crisis centre that refuses to guarantee an all-female service? To find herself sharing a prison cell with a male rapist who's identified into the women's prison?
I wasn't a multimillionaire at fourteen. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women's rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without her privileges.
The greatest irony here is that, had Emma not decided in her most recent interview to declare that she loves and treasures me - a change of tack I suspect she's adopted because she's noticed full-throated condemnation of me is no longer quite as fashionable as it was - I might never have been this honest.
Adults can't expect to cosy up to an activist movement that regularly calls for a friend's assassination, then assert their right to the former friend's love, as though the friend was in fact their mother. Emma is rightly free to disagree with me and indeed to discuss her feelings about me in public - but I have the same right, and I've finally decided to exercise it.
Chinua Achebe in Enugu, Nigeria, 1959. He's wearing 5" shorts and a one-piece collar shirt. This means the collar is made without a separate collar band, allowing the collar to flow seamlessly into the placket, creating a relaxed, vacation vibe. Great summer style.