this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2024
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Say NO to AI in the #Firefox browser - have your say here; (mas.erb.pw)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
43 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Say NO to AI in the #Firefox browser - have your say here;

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/share-your-feedback-on-the-ai-services-experiment-in-nightly/td-p/60519

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 month ago (4 children)

People hate the term AI and so Mozilla were always going to struggle with providing modern functionality, as let's face it, the Internet is embracing AI whether we like it or not

There's AI in many forms in Firefox such as how it predicts the page you want to revisit from the address bar and translates content locally on device. If these AI capabilities were moved to extensions, it would probably significantly reduce the benefit users get from Firefox and likely prevent other useful features such as privacy preserving AI alternatives.

This is poignant. AI as we know it is basically what we were calling machine learning a couple years ago. The same people that are very vocally complaining about the advent of a smarter browser, are the same people that bemoan Mozilla for depending on Google for financing. Somehow they want a browser that only the most devout privacy evangelists would use and they want a browser that is self-sustained through diverse deals, none of which they're able to see or feel.

I feel like there's a lot of disingenuous Firefox supporters who want a utopia browser and refuse to allow Mozilla to do anything to evolve the browser. These same people talk up all the Firefox forks and that change a few defaults and yet bemoan everything Mozilla does that makes those forks possible. It's boring.

  • I want a browser with on device translations.
  • I want a browser with smart page suggestions.
  • I want a browser that's able to summarise articles.
  • I want a browser that can fact-check pages.
[–] chemical_cutthroat 30 points 1 month ago

Don't forget, they want all of that in a nice, neat, FOSS package, which they will not contribute one dollar or a single line of code to.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

@sabreW4K3 why don't you fork Firefox to do all those unnecessary for everyone else things? Firefox needs to stay unbloated, unAI'd, and most importantly sincere to it's original intents.

"I want a browser that can fact-check pages" 🤣 AI cannot fact check itself let alone anything else. Why don't you do your own fact checking?

My £0.02

[–] Carighan 17 points 1 month ago

Firefox needs to stay unbloated, unAI’d, and most importantly sincere to it’s original intents.

[citation needed]

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

cannot fact check itself let alone anything else. Why don't you do your own fact checking?

Why don't I render my own CSS? Firefox has the ability to pull alternative sources in the background and compare against my current page. What is wrong with that?

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

It's... Challenging. Like the pet eating thing, there are many sources saying it's true and many saying it's false. Official sources can lie (Russia came to mind for no reason whatsoever), so we rely on sources we already trust, which is tricky and even subjective.

I imagine that "if in Fox then False" is a good start, but aside from that I can only think it getting extra sources, also a challenge without real time web crawling of the internet, were google and Microsoft are already light years ahead.

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

But if Mozilla can, for example create a sources list and even charge for the ability to be a default on said sources list, wouldn't that be a double win? The problem with things being unreliable can be dealt with via language. Like big red text saying don't trust this blindly.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

They can also do intelligent searching and simply surface links.

Do I trust LLM summaries? Not fully. But how about the strategy used by an app like BeyondPDF for Mac:

Think: Firefox does the search, then gives you the sources and the most likely relevant excerpts from each. Consequences of it searching wrong? A small waste of time, but no misinfo.

Sidebar!

One can be against environmental costs of great machine-learning powered search, and offended by the arguable IP theft that created the tools, but it’s unlikely all those who say they “don’t want AI anything!” really mean that entirely.

“I don’t want or need the current version of ChatGPT for my use cases” is very fair though. Maybe they don’t have any SQL queries or Excel formulas - on the edge of their abilities - to build, or text to beautify, or quirky esoteric philosophy to bounce off a robot…

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Pay to be the "truth" on a fact checking tool? Fox news is very interested.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Aren't Google and Bing and others paying to be featured in Firefox. What's the difference?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

the Internet is embracing AI whether we like it or not

And if not, the feature gets removed again in a year or so. So far it doesn't really seem like it's in your face or anything, so 🤷

[–] Carighan 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Plus you can just turn it off or not use it. This is just a convenience of access to existing things, nothing newly built or added or so. All the loud whiners in that connect thread just once again show to Mozilla that they are better off never asking for feedback, since people are utterly unable to provide any in a way that is well-adjusted or more adult than a 6y old. >.>

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Looking at the current status, it's a matter of "not turning it on" rather than "turning it off", even.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But the problem is, people think that there's one single development team working on Firefox and if they're working on AI, they're not improving or working on anything else.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

As a data scientist, trust me: you don't want us developing ANYTHING else. You guys dogged a bullet having us busy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago
  • I want a browser that can fact-check web pages
  • I want a browser that can keep track of my cryptocurrency investments
  • I want a browser that can monitor the market for Beanie Babies
  • I want a browser with a built-in Pokemon Go panel
  • I want a browser that can detect when I'm about to post cringe
  • I want a browser with tail fins and shag carpeting

Come on Mozilla, make it happen! As an added bonus, all that added UI cruft will probably mean new places to show advertising at the users.

[–] Carighan 38 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Why would I say no to them providing a sidebar option for that?

Tons of people love to engage with LLMs, would be utterly assinine of Mozilla to not do something this benign to make it easier to use stuff?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

They can make it into an extension then.

Like Container tabs, which, of all things, should be baked into the browser.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They can, but why? If I can be enabled/disabled, what's the harm? If I thought Firefox is nefarious it wouldn't use it at all, not just avoid their extensions. It's not like that's the only way they could have to spy of it was the goal.

This will be aimed for the average Joe that thinks it's "neat" edge has it and doesn't know about extensions.

Mullvad and Librewolf might have it disabled, it's an easy switch.

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

The harm is that it contributes to software bloat. I haven't met an "average user" that desperately wants AI in any product, at least the type of AI that these companies keep trying to shove down our throats.

The harm is that AI is still very new, with many of its use cases not panning out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

So no harm, noted.

[–] Carighan 4 points 1 month ago

Container tabs are baked into the browser? 🤷

But one of the devs replied to the expansion thing in the feedback, and says it would not work well as an expansion. I dunno, can't judge that, never worked on the FF codebase before.

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

Opportunity cost

[–] Carighan 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well they're adding more options for people, that's exactly what people always want them to spend their time on. More options and user choices, default off, seems they're doing it exactly what people always want them to do? 🤷

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

That doesn't address the opportunity cost. Spending time on this means not spending time on something else. There are other optional things and user choices they could work on instead. This is always the case when doing anything, but AI is very far down the list of things I think are worth paying the costs for.

[–] Carighan 2 points 1 month ago

Well, I can't judge it for everyone personally of course. And I don't like AI conceptually. But fucking hell if not every single person is constantly interacting with the common chat LLMs. To the point where they actually use Edge because it has it fully integrated. So from a browser-maker perspective, I kinda get it. The users at large seem to have decided that constantly asking an LLM first is "the future", much as that sucks.

I still don't like it personally, but so long as it's default-off, eh, sure. Do it for all the people who care, which frankly seem to be the overwhelming majority most days.

[–] BananaTrifleViolin 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Why would I say no? If it can be turned off I don't care. Mozilla might get some money from the idiotic AI frenzy which will help keep them going.

Of course if its implemented badly to affect privacy and security then no. But forks of Firefox like Fennac and Librewolf will strip this stuff out. I'm no fan of this AI nonsense but I haven't seen anything yet to suggest this is anything more than a gimmick.

[–] Carighan 10 points 1 month ago

In fact you have to explicitly turn it on, as someone else corrected me already. It's an optional feature for people who enjoy AI chat in a sidebar akin to Edge or so. For the rest of us, it doesn't change anything.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I don't get why y'all are so mad about this. As long as the features are optional and I can easily turn them off in the settings, they don't bother me at all.

[–] Carighan 7 points 1 month ago

You don't even have to turn it off, it's how people always ask them to do it: It's opt-in.

[–] fireweed 3 points 1 month ago

A reason that everyone should get behind:

AI = increased carbon emissions for a product that won't even be useful because AI is really unreliable.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

@[email protected] AI watching (and reporting on) everything you browse using that browser right back to Mozilla, are you really that naive to believe this won't happen?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

@[email protected] if they're going to be forced into the browser, they should be opt-in, not opt-out.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

The biggest issue with Mozilla if they didn't decide to put some form of AI stuff in Firefox is that their competitors could use it as ammunition to fuel an as campaign painting Firefox as not only out of touch and outdated, but less secure because they don't have AI security.

I can guarantee if average person, like my middle aged parents who aren't very tech savvy, saw an ad pointing that out (no matter how untrue it is) I'd be told about it the next chance they got, proving they believe it.

They have to keep up with what their competitors are doing or get left behind and die a slow and painful death. AI is just the latest trend to be added, and Mozilla is just trying to keep up to ensure whatever remainder of normies still use Firefox don't decide to abandon ship.

I personally don't like it, but what other options are there?

[–] Carighan 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I mean, let's not forget this is not "putting AI in the browser". This is just providing a sidebar option that you the user can put AI into, should you want to!

It gives options to users: Exactly what people always tell Mozilla to do.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Wise words ! The best option would be to add AI by default but let's people to totally disable it either via about:config or an uncheck box in the options.

Let's be real, only tech savy people mess around with about:config nobs so this wouldn't bother casual users an give others the possibility to disable it.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Just want to clarify there's no LLM integrated IN the browser that many seem to be assuming. This experimental feature loads an external chat window in the sidebar to another service.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

the uses of ai that firefox has implemented are optional and great for accessibility. why would you oppose that?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

@cupcakezealot I would oppose that because I don't want ai infecting my computers or life. Having an "opt-out" simply isn't good enough either. IF they deem it necessary to bow down and be submissive to AI, the must make it opt-in and not infect the browser but make it an addon (read extension).

Anything else would undermine both their browser, and their relationship with their browser users.

If you want to use AI, use it, but don't make it the default and/or force people to use it, simples

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Seems like a pointless waste of time for a first-party effort, when they could be… Idk, implementing the audio manipulation APIs that Discord relies on, or something.

But I don’t necessarily see direct harm from it either. Just useless.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I would but I get a 401 when I attempt to sign in.

I know it's a functional Mozilla account because I use it every day for sync but here we are.

[–] avieshek 2 points 1 month ago

No

[–] dohpaz42 1 points 1 month ago

Would have loved to, but keep getting a 401 when attempting to login. 😢