Nano a nono: Pixel 8 phones too dumb for Google's smallest Gemini AI model

Nano, Google's smallest AI model in its generative Gemini series, will not be available on Pixel 8 handsets due to "some hardware limitations." Announced in December, Nano runs on high-end Android smartphones such as Google's latest Pixel 8 Pro and Samsung's Galaxy S24 line. The model provides various typical AI features of …

[Anonymous Coward]

Better to hedge your bets

All the text generated by the model is private since the data [that] doesn't leave the smartphone [is private].

[Roland6]

Gemini AI optional?

I suppose it will be highly unlikely that Gemini AI will be a user initiated download from the Play store and part of the pre installed bundle and thus wasting much of a phone’s limited storage.

It is also going to be interesting to see what impact it has on a phones battery life.

All these unknowns would seem to make the Pixel 8 an attractive phone…

[biddibiddibiddibiddi]

They will magically find a way to make it work when they don't see sales of the Pro and use of Gemini increase. It will be a race for absolute numbers, a desire to be able to report a high number of "Gemini-capable" or "Gemini-installed" devices, and if there aren't enough Pro phones sold to make that number big enough, they'll just make it part of the non-Pro as well even if it's nigh-unusable (for what little use it has). They might even make it a "Cloud-interactive" version on the non-Pro, or whatever euphemism they can come up with, as a workaround for the limitations, so they can still say it supports *A* version of Gemini.

[RedGreen925]

"They will magically find a way to make it work when they don't see sales of the Pro and use of Gemini increase."

First thought that entered my mind when reading the lie told. They seek to fleece the rubes firstly with the exclusive high end feature only to open it up to all, then once the next wave of screw you we are putting more garbage on your phone because we want to hits as is typical of them. The assholes at Google are good at that putting unwanted apps on the phone for their benefit but god forbid they ever doing a fucking security update for you.

[Neil Barnes]

Still waiting...

for the day when I will be benefited by having a statistical way to summarise audio recordings or reply to messages on my behalf.

[m4r35n357]

It's called a Unique Selling Proposition

[Pascal Monett]

"Google declined to comment on the record"

And off the record, what did Google say ?

[Tron]

Not the obvious hardware failing though.

No memory card slot. You should never buy a mobile device that you cannot physically remove your content from by pulling it out.

[nijam]

At last, a (very very small) reason to consider a Pixel 8: No AI.

[imanidiot]

Not the latest version, currently, by what is known at time of publication. There's probably already at least some AI crap on those.

[Michael Wojcik]

A blessing in disguise?

Struggling to find the "in disguise" part. Not wasting resources on LLM bullshit seems like an advantage to me.

AICore is useful in that it allows apps to tap into Gemini Nano on the local device without needing an internet connection to some remote cloud service.

This must be a meaning of "useful" I had not previously encountered.

But, hey, 12GB of RAM to perform a task that could easily be bettered by a halfway-capable undergraduate student... sure, that's a great demonstration of human ingenuity.

[Brynstero0]

Pixel 8 owner here

I am delighted that I wont be able to put my persona data in even more harms way than it already is.....