this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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MemoryCache is an experimental developer project to turn a local desktop environment into an on-device AI agent.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

The website does a bad job explaining what its current state actually is. Here's the GitHub repo's explanation:

Memory Cache is a project that allows you to save a webpage while you're browsing in Firefox as a PDF, and save it to a synchronized folder that can be used in conjunction with privateGPT to augment a local language model.

So it's just a way to get data from browser into privateGPT, which is:

PrivateGPT is a production-ready AI project that allows you to ask questions about your documents using the power of Large Language Models (LLMs), even in scenarios without an Internet connection. The project provides an API offering all the primitives required to build private, context-aware AI applications.

So basically something you can ask questions like "how much butter is needed for that recipe I saw last week?" and "what are the big trends across the news sites I've looked at recently?". But eventually it'll automatically summarize and data mine everything you look at to help you learn/explore.

Neat.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

They should find a better fitting name than MemoryCache. Thanks for this comment.

[–] douglasg14b 9 points 10 months ago

Damn, this is EXACTLY the kind of project I've been seeking out and trying to figure out.

I want all my browsing habits stored locally for AI to tell me what I saw, or to find something I read, or to dig up a citation I swear exists.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I thought they're trying to reinvent in-memory key-val storage meant for caching.

[–] qaz 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I don't think this name is very fitting, because that was my first thought as well. Something like "Firefox local assistant" would probably be a bit clearer.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I think it's gonna be another Pocket -- stuff nobody wants that Mozilla keeps on pushing for no apparent reason.

[–] danthehutt 3 points 10 months ago

But I like pocket...I save all my recipes in there

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I agree Pocket part. Pocket is literally an extension. Why they’re installing it built-in and don’t let us remove?

I think they should’ve made it as extension, install it by default and let us remove it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Looks like Mozilla is inspired by Microsoft's great naming skills

[–] recapitated 1 points 10 months ago

Let's call everything link, but each product misspelled in a unique way.

[–] AtmaJnana 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Interesting project. Terrible name.

[–] recapitated 1 points 10 months ago

Instead of saying "I googled it", we can say "I memcached it" 🤔

[–] themurphy 13 points 10 months ago

This thing sounds mostly like a way to explore the possibilities with AI. Which I'm all for.

It sounds like it will learn from what you do in your browser, and as we are humans and therefore have alot of habits, then we might find this tool useful!

[–] BetaDoggo_ 5 points 10 months ago

We're not breaking ground on AI innovation (in fact, we're using an old, "deprecated" file format from a whole six months ago)

The ggml format isn't "deprecated" it's completely dead. In those 6 months we've also seen 2-4x speedups on some systems, not to mention improved accuracy via kquants. I don't know why they would build out a new extension with such an ancient dependency.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

This seems interesting.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Why does it have such a generic name that has nothing to do with the project? Also as soon as I see "privacy and terms of conditions" it raised red flags when it's supposed to be on device.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 10 months ago

I've been holding back my Mozilla funding because they are shirking work on Firefox and Servo