Feedback on AI features (from someone who actually wants to use them)

[svudhglskdjhgfj]

I encountered yet another wall-of-text blog post and wanted to use a LLM to summarize it/extract the single point the author was making.

This was a miserable failure that ended with me disabling the AI features in Firefox (and copy-pasting it into ChatGPT).

• I am asked to choose an AI chatbot, with 5 options and no extra information on each of them.
  • The first one I try is useless without logging in/creating an account.
  • No indication which of the ones available I can actually use without making an account.
  • No indication which of them have a reasonable privacy policy, e.g. not using data for training and not storing my prompts.
  • All "help" I get from Mozilla for choosing is the privacy policy (which is a wall of text that I'd need an LLM for to summarize), this page with generic advice and links to more walls of text and a link to more "helpful tips" from Mozilla which are unrelated (different set of chatbots) and outdated/wrong (Le Chat seems to be one of the few that can be used without an account).
• I pick Le Chat and ask it for a summary of the wall of text. It provides a summary of its system instructions (including the part about not revealing them, lol) because apparently the page wasn't fed to it as the context. Apparently, that requires me to use the "summarize" button which doesn't let me customize the prompt.
• I use the summarize button. I receive a message stating that since the page is long, it's only a partial summary. Which makes the feature pointless because I'm using it precisely because the page is so long. The summary of course only summarizes the waffling because the actual point of the article is somewhere in the missing part. I also don't want a summary of the waffling, I want the actual point, so I need to be able to customize the prompt.
• I disable the feature, copy-paste the page into ChatGPT with a "what points, if any, is the author of this wall of text actually trying to make" prompt, and receive my answer.
• I try to repro for this post, but can't find a way to re-enable the feature short of endless digging through about:config

So, suggestions:

• On the choice page, clearly show whether it can be used directly, free-but-account-required, or paid, plus a a one-line summary of the key privacy aspects. Yes, that requires checking the privacy policy. Yes, that's work. If you want to provide value to users, this is an opportunity to do so.
• Add a checkbox "include the content of the current page" so we can actually use the LLM in the context of the current page. For anything else, why would I use a browser sidebar rather than a bookmark?!?
• Make sure "content of the current page" means "the entire medium post" (this one was ~2200 words long). Walls of text are what LLMs are good for.
• Make the setting for enabling/disabling this discoverable.

[svudhglskdjhgfj]

also, pretending to allow anonymous comments ("You must be signed in to add attachments" but no login prompt) and only revealing that a login is required after I've written all that is a pretty dark pattern 😞

[KellyClowers]

Testing no login

[KellyClowers]

It… signed me back in? I singed out guys… I know if used the back button after signing out, and it is my signed in FF account, but what?

[KellyClowers]

Test again, no back button

[KellyClowers]

When I came from a private browser window it asked me to sign in. Which it should have done as soon as I tried after hitting sign out. Some kind of sign-in state is being kept incorrectly.

I originally tested because I wondered if maybe thread starters had to be signed in, that could maybe kinda make sense? But no, replies have to be as well.

I mean, I get if the forum doesn't want to have anon posts, that's fair, but the "must be signed in to add attachments" and no other indicators like text or at least the post button greyed out really implies to me you do allow anonymous posts. Feels like bait and switch even if not the intent.

[KellyClowers]

As someone who has no interest in AI chatbots and has that feature, link previews and tab group AI disabled (translations stays on, as does PDF alt text… even though I don't use a screen reader…), I still thank you. Sounds like Mozilla could definitely use the feedback.