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No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

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Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#51

Post by Qem »

almosthere wrote: post #2

I do think dipping your toes into the future is worth it. If it turns out the LLM is trying to kill us by cancelling our meetings and emailing people that we're crazy that would suck. But I don't think this is any more dangerous than giving people a browser in the first place. They have already done enough to shoot themselves in the foot enough.

> If it turns out the LLM is trying to kill us by cancelling our meetings and emailing people that we're crazy that would suck.

It's more likely it will try to kill us by talking depressed people into suicide and providing virtual ersatz boyfriends/girlfriends to replace real human relationships, what is a functional equivalent to cyber-neutering, given people can't have children by dating LLMs.

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#52

Post by AuthAuth »

mindcrash wrote: post #34
clueless wrote: post #5

This whole backlash to firefox wanting to introduce AI feels a little knee-jerky. We don't know if firefox might want to roll out their own locally hosted LLM model that then they plug into.. and if so, if would cut down on the majority of the knee jerk complaints. I think people want AI in the browser, they just don't want it to be the big-corp hosted AI... [Update]: as I posted below, sample use cases would include…

They are not "wanting" to introduce AI, they already did. And now we have: - A extra toolbar nobody asked for at the side. And while it contains some extra features now, I'm pretty much sure they added it just to have some prominent space to add a "Open AI Chatbot" button to the UI. And it is irritating as fuck because it remembers its state per window. So if you have one window open with the sidebar open, and you cl…

All your complaints can be resolved in a few seconds by using the settings to customize the browser to your liking and not downloading extensions you dont like. And tons of people asked for that sidebar by the way.

We have to put this all in the context. Firefox is trying to diversify their revenue away from google search. They are trying to provide users with a Modern browser. This means adding the features that people expect like AI integration and its a nice bonus if the AI companies are willing to pay for that.

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#54

Post by TheRealPomax »

nullbound wrote: post #42
TheRealPomax wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want the people who make Firefox to make decisions about Firefox based on what users have been asking for instead of based on what a CEO of a for-profit decides is still not going to make them any money, just like every other plan that got pitched in the last 10 years that failed to turn their losing streak around. It's not a knee-jerk reaction to "AI", it's a perfectly reasonable reaction to Mozilla yet again sayi…

While I do sympathize with the thought behind it, general user is already equating llm chat box as 'better browsing'. In terms of simple positioning vis-a-vis non-technical audience, this is one integration that does make fiscal sense.. if mozilla was a real business. Now, personally, I would like to have sane defaults, where I can toggle stuff on and off, but we all know which way the wind blows in this case.

Firefox is not for general users, which is the problem that Mozilla's for a literal decade now. There is no way to make it better than Chrome or Safari (because it has to be better for every day users to switch, not just "as good" or even "way more configurable but slightly worse". It has to be appreciably better).

So the only user base is the power user. And then yes: sane defaults, and a way to turn things on and off. And functionality that makes power users tell their power user friends to give FF a try again. Because if you can't even do that, Firefox firmly deserves (and right now, it does) it's "we don't even really rank" position in the browser market.

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#56

Post by ekr____ »

autoexec wrote: post #46
ekr____ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PSA (for the nth time): about:config is not a supported way of configuring Firefox, so if you tweak features with about:config, don't be surprised if those tweaks stop working without warning.

Mozilla tells you to use it so it so that seems supported enough to me (example: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-stop-firefox-making... ) That said, they're admittedly terrible about keeping their documentation updated, letting users know about added/depreciated settings, and they've even been known to go in and modify settings after you've explicitly changed them from defaults, so the PSA isn't entirely unj…

Ugh. Because they also say:

"Two other forms of advanced configuration allow even further customization: about:config preference modifications and userChrome.css or userContent.css custom style rules. However, Mozilla highly recommends that only the developers consider these customizations, as they could cause unexpected behavior or even break Firefox. Firefox is a work in progress and, to allow for continuous innovation, Mozilla cannot guarantee that future updates won’t impact these customizations."

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-advanced-custom...

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#58

Post by koolala »

Cheer2171 wrote: post #39
inkysigma wrote: post #32

> Large language models are something else entirely*. They are black boxes. You cannot audit them. You cannot truly understand what they do with your data. You cannot verify their behaviour. And Mozilla wants to put them at the heart of the browser and that doesn't sit well. Am I being overly critical here or is this kind of a silly position to have right after talking about how neural machine translation is okay? Ma…

No, it is disqualifyingly clueless. The author defends one neural network, one bag of effectively-opaque floats that get blended together with WASM to produce non-deterministic outputs which are injected into the DOM (translation), then righteously crusades against other bags of floats (LLMs). From this point of view, uBlock Origin is also effectively un-auditable. Or your point about them maybe imagining AI as non-l…

I'm ok with Translation because it's best solved with AI. I'm not ok with it when Firefox "uses AI to read your open tabs" to do things that don't even need an AI based solution.

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#60

Post by koolala »

AuthAuth wrote: post #52
mindcrash wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not "wanting" to introduce AI, they already did. And now we have: - A extra toolbar nobody asked for at the side. And while it contains some extra features now, I'm pretty much sure they added it just to have some prominent space to add a "Open AI Chatbot" button to the UI. And it is irritating as fuck because it remembers its state per window. So if you have one window open with the sidebar open, and you cl…

All your complaints can be resolved in a few seconds by using the settings to customize the browser to your liking and not downloading extensions you dont like. And tons of people asked for that sidebar by the way. We have to put this all in the context. Firefox is trying to diversify their revenue away from google search. They are trying to provide users with a Modern browser. This means adding the features that peo…

Pay for what? It says it's a local AI model so how will AI companies be giving Firefox revenue from this?
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