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Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

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Re: Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

#2
> This will result in Mozilla and Apple having to licence Google's model, or ship a model that's quirks-compatible with the Google model in order to be interoperable. It may also become difficult for Chrome to update its own model for the same reasons.

Google is again doing Evil.

I am very annoyed that Google kind of de-facto controls the www (through chrome, let's be honest here).

We really need to change this. I don't have a good solution here, but it can not continue that way.

Re: Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

#3

> This will result in Mozilla and Apple having to licence Google's model, or ship a model that's quirks-compatible with the Google model in order to be interoperable. It may also become difficult for Chrome to update its own model for the same reasons. Google is again doing Evil. I am very annoyed that Google kind of de-facto controls the www (through chrome, let's be honest here). We really need to change this. I do…

Only have yourselves to blame. Chrome made the internet better but everyone put their fingers in their ears about it getting worse at the same time.

Re: Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

#5
I wonder if it makes sense for browser vendors to agree upon and ship various ‘standard models’ that are released into the public domain or something, and the API lets you pick between them.

The models themselves would be standardized and the weights and everything should be identical between browsers. They’d be standard and ‘web-safe’ like CSS colors or fonts. Probably would help to give them really boring/unbranded names too. These would work identically across browsers and web developers can rely on them existing on modern setups.

If you want more models, you could install them as a user or your browser could ship them or the web developers could bundle them through a CDN (and another standard for shared big files across domains would probably be needed)

Re: Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

#6
post #5

I wonder if it makes sense for browser vendors to agree upon and ship various ‘standard models’ that are released into the public domain or something, and the API lets you pick between them. The models themselves would be standardized and the weights and everything should be identical between browsers. They’d be standard and ‘web-safe’ like CSS colors or fonts. Probably would help to give them really boring/unbranded…

The rate of model development is an issue here. Once there are many cross-origin models, it becomes a fingerprinting vector. Also even the small models are many GBs.

Re: Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

#8
post #4

So the next anti trust case for the EU. Chrome is clearly dominating the browser market and now they try to abuse that (again)

It's exhausting having such reflexive thoughtless ragging anytime Chrome is mentioned.

Oh no! Chrome is trying to enhance user agency again! Oh no! Chrome is trying to make the web better for end users!

Mozilla's concerns aren't totally bogus, I'm not going to try to laugh them out of the room. But their pearl clutching & belly-aching about "oh no what if not all implementations of ai prompts work exactly the same" feels fucking tired and weak sauce to me.

This post really doesn't deserve our attention, my my view. But I'd challenge the haters to at least try to connect their reflexive hate meaningfully to what the topic at hand actually is, to provide something worth considering in some way. But that I think asks too much, for what posts like this seek: merely to inflame the world.

Re: Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

#9
post #4

So the next anti trust case for the EU. Chrome is clearly dominating the browser market and now they try to abuse that (again)

It's exhausting having such reflexive thoughtless ragging anytime Chrome is mentioned. Oh no! Chrome is trying to enhance user agency again! Oh no! Chrome is trying to make the web better for end users! Mozilla's concerns aren't totally bogus, I'm not going to try to laugh them out of the room. But their pearl clutching & belly-aching about "oh no what if not all implementations of ai prompts work exactly the same" f…

Oh no, Chrome is adding something that shouldn't be in the browser in the first place. Oh no, Chrome is adding Googles own AI as only possibilty what surely doesn't hinder competition.

Maybe you shouldn't reflexivly defend Chrome when they clearly abuse their market leading position to push their own AI.

Re: Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

#10
If every browser vendor already has their experimental APIs that can work with different models, it might be a good idea to standardize this in WhatWG living standards (which would still be bad user experience on today's consumer hardware)

But if no browser other than Chrome supports this, and only Google's (proprietary) model (edit: plus Microsoft's Phi-4 mini in Edge), it should be clear it's Google abusing its position. There is nothing worth standardizing.

And we have seen that too many times -- FLoC/Privacy Sandbox/Topics API, Web Environment Integrity just to name a few. Google has been relentless in using its dominant position to push terrible ideas that harm both users and other browser vendors but help only Google's business.

Surprised this did not really come up in previous discussion in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47917026

PS: looks like Google's fanboys have arrived. Someone better finds good counterarguments, especially technical ones, instead of just downvoting.

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