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Mozilla is building an AI 'rebel alliance' to take on OpenAI, Anthropic

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Re: Mozilla is building an AI 'rebel alliance' to take on OpenAI, Anthropic

#51

Post by wolvoleo »

dralley wrote: post #46
wolvoleo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can, they just need to approach it not like a big corporation with a multi million dollar a year CEO but as a grassroots project. If something like KDE can build a whole desktop on a shoestring budget with some donations, Firefox can too. And I'd gladly donate to it. Problem is I can't because you can only donate to the foundation. And I don't want to fund their dogood distractions, just firefox. Besides, the sear…

With all due respect a web browser is much more complicated than a desktop environment. Firefox is like 30 million lines of code, much of which is active attack surface. A high performance JIT JavaScript engine alone might be more complex than KDE. Random people can fix UI bugs and contribute to simple desktop apps in a way that they likely cannot in general do with the deep internals of a browser.

KDE includes a web browser. Which spawned Safari in fact.

Re: Mozilla is building an AI 'rebel alliance' to take on OpenAI, Anthropic

#52

Post by ori_b »

dralley wrote: post #46
wolvoleo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can, they just need to approach it not like a big corporation with a multi million dollar a year CEO but as a grassroots project. If something like KDE can build a whole desktop on a shoestring budget with some donations, Firefox can too. And I'd gladly donate to it. Problem is I can't because you can only donate to the foundation. And I don't want to fund their dogood distractions, just firefox. Besides, the sear…

With all due respect a web browser is much more complicated than a desktop environment. Firefox is like 30 million lines of code, much of which is active attack surface. A high performance JIT JavaScript engine alone might be more complex than KDE. Random people can fix UI bugs and contribute to simple desktop apps in a way that they likely cannot in general do with the deep internals of a browser.

With all due respect, that's all the more reason to put all the resources they can behind browser development, rather than scattering it across unrelated projects.

Re: Mozilla is building an AI 'rebel alliance' to take on OpenAI, Anthropic

#53

Post by crystal_revenge »

mittensc wrote: post #10

> Mozilla is focused on deploying its roughly $1.4 billion worth of reserves to support “mission driven” organizations, according to a new report. > The nonprofit, also the parent of Firefox, is investing in artificial intelligence startups that are working on safety and governance issues in AI. Why?, they want to go bankrupt?, do they like burning money? I would understand investing in AI Tech... Brilliant if they u…

> that's governments job

Why do people take these AI "safety" research projects at face value? The real reason you need AI that is "safe" and "governable" is so that when you start having it promote advertisers content or support the current administration, you don't have to worry about it going "off the rails" and promoting a competing product to criticizing the administration.

I'm sure plenty of researchers in this space also believe they are working for the good of humanity, but I suspect the real am is much more practical and perfectly aligned with the business interests of all the companies sponsoring this type of work.

Re: Mozilla is building an AI 'rebel alliance' to take on OpenAI, Anthropic

#54

Post by Etheryte »

Even Apple conceded that building it from scratch is prohibitively expensive. Mozilla would do better to use that money for the browser, but then again, Mozilla has never known how to operate. It's a mere miracle fluke that they're not bankrupt.

Re: Mozilla is building an AI 'rebel alliance' to take on OpenAI, Anthropic

#55

Post by j-bos »

dralley wrote: post #27
wolvoleo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes please let them focus on making Firefox economically sustainable without Google. Then worry about all the fluffy dogood stuff

The problem is that there is no way to make Firefox economically sustainable without Google (or some other search provider, but google won that war comprehensively). Browsers are fully commoditized and subsidized. Funding the browser with a combination of outside revenue sources and search deals is the way everyone does it.

> Mozilla is focused on deploying its roughly $1.4 billion worth of reserves to support “mission driven” organizations, according to a new report.

Back of the envelope math says that's worth 50-70 million dollars a year, taking into account inflation. A cracked developer is worth 1/2 a million per year, both of Mozilla's core offerings are OSS so benefit from free code contributions. Is that not enough for a dozen highly paid software engineers, a well paid CEO and infra? This is ignoring future donations.

Re: Mozilla is building an AI 'rebel alliance' to take on OpenAI, Anthropic

#56

Post by miroljub »

No, just don't.

Given the Mozilla track records and bias, looks like they need another woke LLM that is woker and DEI-er (is that even a word?) than the existing major models.

I'd rather they focus on finally bringing Firefox back where it belongs, instead of spending resources on useless identity wars.

Re: Mozilla is building an AI 'rebel alliance' to take on OpenAI, Anthropic

#58

Post by madeofpalk »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #53
mittensc wrote: post #10

> Mozilla is focused on deploying its roughly $1.4 billion worth of reserves to support “mission driven” organizations, according to a new report. > The nonprofit, also the parent of Firefox, is investing in artificial intelligence startups that are working on safety and governance issues in AI. Why?, they want to go bankrupt?, do they like burning money? I would understand investing in AI Tech... Brilliant if they u…

> that's governments job Why do people take these AI "safety" research projects at face value? The real reason you need AI that is "safe" and "governable" is so that when you start having it promote advertisers content or support the current administration, you don't have to worry about it going "off the rails" and promoting a competing product to criticizing the administration. I'm sure plenty of researchers in this…

Uh, I mean, I think we've seen first hand that generally one aspect of safety we want is to not produce sexualised images of children.

Re: Mozilla is building an AI 'rebel alliance' to take on OpenAI, Anthropic

#60

Post by some_furry »

pseudalopex wrote: post #22
some_furry wrote: post #6

How about building a better AI-free browser first, Mozilla? Is that too much to ask for?

Growing and investing in Firefox remains our biggest priority. Mozilla Corporation’s leading aim is to grow as a meaningful, differentiated browser, trusted by over 200mil people. In 2025 the team made great progress shipping tab groups, vertical tabs, smart tabs, many sidebar integrations with AI companies and more. Mozilla Corp welcomed Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, the first technologist to serve as CEO in over 15 years. I…

> In 2026 there will be a focus on building tools and features for those who want AI, and for those who do not. We are the only browser who does this - and likely the only one that will.[1]

I don't want any AI features to exist in the Firefox source code, since this increases Firefox's attack surface for no real gain to the product I want to use. The AI-enabled browser should be a separate product line for people who want that.

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