No AI in the browser

[fl0id]

Please do not add AI in the browser as a core feature. If you want to experiment with various ways to use AI, please do it as an optional feature in the form of an addon or similar. Many people use FFX because it is not Edge or Chrome, and that necessitates sth like AI being optional.

[Ejorenz]

I agree.

Firefox is supposed to be a privacy focused browser. Now the new CEO wants to integrate AI because he sees everyone else doing it? That doesn't leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling. Nor do I see how that brings a better product to the user.

I don't use Edge or Chrome because I'm against Google and Microsoft using my personal data to train their AI. I dumped Windows 11 and switched to Mint for the same reason. If Mozilla plans to do the same then I will seek out other options. 

[EBNOW]

ME TOO! 

[Mizar]

I second that motion.

[Gamoc]

If you put AI in your browser you will destroy your user base. After all the constant complaints about AI being implemented absolutely everywhere and how privacy is being compromised constantly you decide that's a good idea? 

Clearly the problem is good completely out of touch the people meeting the decisions are. No surprise since you added ads to it long ago but I thought there's be a limit to the incompetence. 

[Mizar]

AI is a new arms race, a new power that should not be wielded by anyone.

[Ejorenz]

I agree. NO AI.

I don't use Edge or Chrome because I'm against Google and MS using my personal data to train their AI. I will certainly find a mozilla replacement if they integrate AI as well.

[BaconMacAndChee]

100%. So-called artificial intelligence exacerbates inequality and accelerates climate change, with no real benefit for humanity. And the industrial-grade bull**bleep** machines known as "generative ai" are like the latest vanguard, threatening to divide us even further. AI is a bubble, and chasing after it is NOT a human-centric product strategy. Ideally, Mozilla would resist this temptation and not waste any resources on AI.

If AI comes to Firefox, I will be looking for another browser, full stop. Mozilla, if you insist on shoveling this trash into Firefox, respect your users and make it purely opt-in.

[Mizar]

Normally I tend not to agree with posts of inflamatory nature but in this case I open an exception.

[WildThing]

Everyone in this thread sounds like the Luddites destroying the cotton gin to avoid progress, due to real, but inevitable concerns it posed.

Those who shun AI are doomed to be overwhelmed by it.

Go use GPT to write a song (you don't care about copyrighting) or have a conversation on a topic your friends aren't educated on. You'll see, the Chicken Little scenarios aren't necessarily founded.

Also, people turning on Mozilla after decades of trust due to them again being innovative in the industries they are known for, is bizarre to me. They would fall behind without investing in this oncoming technological transition.

If you don't realize they will do their best to maintain the stellar security they are already known for, and provide optional implementation, you're not deserving of their amazing app to begin with.

The. Sky. Is. Not. Falling. =:xB

[Ok-Horror-50861]

The issue for me is there is no choice to the end user.  It is a heavy handed...YOU WILL ACCEPT AI IN THE PRODUCT YOU USE...people don't like. Its a tired narrative, but I did switch to a linux distro as my daily driver to get away from m$ft copilot. Sure, one can "disable" copilot right now, but what happens when that option is removed, as will eventually and inevitably happen?  Further, I recently opened a search page through google on my cell phone and the WHOLE results page was AI generated summaries...which is not what I searched for.  I wasn't looking for anything close to the summaries.  It was a waste of my time to figure out how to disable generative ai in searches (also with results generated by the generative ai).  I'm perfectly willing to have ai, I want it on MY terms tho.  make it 100% removable from the program.  Not something you disable.  100% removable with no trace of integration.  Then I can decide when I want to utilize that feature, if ever.

People are turning on mozilla because it is one of the last bastions that is away from the prying eyes of alphabet, meta, m$ft, (among others) and they are watching it turn into the very thing they sought refuge from.  I think people will come around on ai eventually.  Personally, I'm fine with ai existing as a tool to opt-in to.  What i would really like to avoid is to have an "ai" "respond" to me when I never willingly initiated its use. If its a standalone program that can integrate with firefox, awesome.  If it is going to be baked in to the browser with no real way to remove it (not disable, remove), then i'm afraid people will realize there is really no distinction among the browsers any more and will just stick with a chromium product.

[WildThing]

As you've pointed out the "choice" is to change OS or browser. But I truly feel like Mozilla has done the right thing in taking their time with integration but that curve may leave them behind if they don't offer an optional integrated AI assistant in the very near future, or, as I mentioned in another post, the local OS AIs will begin to API integrate on their own and Mozilla may be left behind entire.

[chrismon]

Name calling won't solve anything, especially when it's inaccurate. Obviously nobody here is scared of tech. Search engines are a means to getting information, but without transparent sources, it's no longer reliable information, but part of a system aimed at making humans dependent on machine learning. Humans who want to think for themselves should have the right and the means to say 'no thanks'.

[WildThing]

I felt it was quite appropriate. Also, I see sources in 90% of the AI browser searches I see. The technology is improving and faster than anyone can predict, and I think that is a -good- thing.

[roseng]

it is appropriate, in a sense, because the luddites actually had a fairly solid political platform. they were textile workers who believed - correctly - that the cotton gin and other cropping machinery would lead to workers being fired en masse, and result in inferior quality products. The domestic textile manufacturing industry at the time - much like the tech sector now - was notorious for overhiring and mass-firing so that they could have security when times were good and cut costs while times are bad. Now, we see this push for "AI" that can possibly replace, they say, human workers altogether in some industries, right after a plague and massive tarrifs. But, I digress; the luddites were then shot by mill owners and executed in large numbers, and their name has been used as a casual insult toward anyone with technological concerns for over 2 centuries. Thanks for continuing the legacy of the mill owners.

[jamesagainstAI]

I appreciate your concise and educated response. I will be remembering this comment for years to come.

[EBNOW]

technology transition....ummm ai answer only in a liberal context. and does not believe in GOD.

[WildThing]

You're a meme

[Jellebelle]

What I find quite funny about your example is that the Luddites were correct? The mills were used to diminish the workforce and create more profits for the people who owned the mills, and less money for the communities they operated in. Automation, if it were used to make jobs easier (and not diminish pay and opportunity), would be helpful - but that's not what it's for. Automation is currently and historically a tool for union busting and destruction of skilled jobs, to create more money among fewer people, as we're seeing with the current AI bubble. That people were convinced to use "Luddite" as a term for "people who hate technology" rather than "people who resist their own disenfranchisement" is a major victory in historical propaganda. Also, that these environment-destroying AI companies have convinced you that their future is "inevitable" is another bit of useful propaganda: people don't fight so hard against something they see as inevitable.

The only problem automation was built to solve is "how do I avoid paying humans for their work?" Sometimes, as with cotton mills, there were useful by-products to automation, such as "cheaper and faster creation of cotton". With generative AI*, the ONLY problem it solves is "how do avoid paying for labour". And unlike cotton mills, it doesn't work nearly as well as a person. And as most people are part of the labouring side of the equation, rather than the mill-owning side, it's ridiculously gullible to support something that does not benefit you in the slightest - that was created to disadvantage you, inherently.

Aside from the labour issue, gen AI also just doesn't work. It's solving problems that don't exist. It's like Bit Coin all over again. It creates more problems than it solves. It uses up massive amounts of water and electricity, and creates huge carbon emissions during an accelerating climate crisis.

But they said it was inevitable, and you wouldn't want to look like a Luddite, so I guess you'll support the union-busting, environment-destroying, nonsense-generating machines...

*which is another bit of hilariously transparent propaganda - there is nothing "intelligent" about generative AI. It's an appropriation of a long-understood sci-fi concept that looks NOTHING like gen AI. But because it's labelled "AI" people believe it can think.

[WildThing]

I understand the points you're making. I do believe many of them steel man my original assessment, though.

Is the goal for AI to go away? That is what I was responding to with the "inevitable" terminology.

You are absolutely correct about the historical context of the term Luddite, but to reinforce my point; Did the machinery they were fighting to remove disappear because of the desperate activism of humanity, or further ingenuity creating even more complex technology that eventually overtook it and made it obsolete?

I realize you likely thought you were communicating with a wannabe capitalist, but, to be clear, I believe in the necessity of some form of UBI to combat the obvious revolution in our economic and social systems that this new technology will eventually bring. In fact, down with borders, money and any non-democratic aspects of state.

I advocate for the use of this technology to benefit more than hinder humanity. I acknowledge there are valid reasons to be cautious moving into this new age, but what I'm advocating against is the doomscroll that the type of uninformed comments I was replying to were demonstrating.

You clearly have a greater understanding of the downsides of the technology, and I appreciate that.

Still excited for Mozilla to adopt an (optional, pre-instal) AI assistant into their regular build options.

Good Luck To You

[Mephisto]

It is BS to assume that the misuse of new technology by its originators should result in its demonisation. The history of humanity is long, and yet the question of technological misuse has already manifested itself in the form of rudimentary tools such as bows and arrows. The Luddite were nihilistic fools who sought to halt human progress through destruction and violence. This perspective stands in stark contrast to that of social democratic labour movements. Indeed these individuals were "people who resist[ed] their own disenfranchisement", yet they recognised that change is ultimately inevitable and is most justly realised when machines are operated in a rule-based and egalitarian environment, rather than being stormed.

This is precisely why Mozilla must embrace AI to ensure that this technology is designed fairly.

[roseng]

the adoption of the cotton gin was by no means inevitable. the machines are large and easy to break, hard to learn. mill owners were able to keep them operating by way of the use of force, literally shooting and killing luddites to prevent the natural feelings of upset that croppers and skilled textile workers felt at being forced out of the industry. You confuse capitalism's goals with inevitability because you've only lived under capitalism, but there's nothing "inevitable" about the giant datacenters that use more electricity than a country apiece.

[flushing-ferret]

I don't like having my data stolen to create BS generators. The amount of harm that "Gen AI" has already done is greater than any benefits that it brings. The collection of user data should be opt in and anyone that agrees to have their data scraped is a push over who doesn't actually care about how their data is handled. And especially as data leaks become more common, I don't want this data to fall into the wrong hands, especially if you do anything remotely sensitive in your browser like, I don't know, ONLINE BANKING, where you know, YOUR FULL ACCOUNT NUMBERS ARE AVAILABLE. AI should honestly be severely regulated to the point that it isn't profitable.

[user_68]

That's the crux of the issue:  "AI should honestly be severely regulated to the point that it isn't profitable."

[RattyTatTat]

You people said the same things about NFT's.

[Glaug-Eldare]

How much are your apes worth now?

[d3xbot]

Who wrote the words Chat GPT is twisting into the little ditty you asked it to write? Surely not someone who consented to the AI scraping their creative works.

Who drew/painted/photographed the art Dall•E used to make the pictures it makes? Did they consent to having their art scraped? Most of my artist friends have not. One of my artist friends showed on twitter complaining about art being expensive and you should just go on Dall•E and type "Make a painting of ABCXYZ in the style of $ARTISTNAME" instead of paying artists for their professional work. The Twitter user was literally telling people to rip off my friend's art style with AI.

Generative AI is stealing from people and claiming to be original AND using more power than bitcoin to train these schmancy models.

I work in higher education. I've seen so many cases of data leakage through AI accessing datasets it wasn't supposed to be able to access. I can't risk AI having access to the same confidential data I have access to.

---

Specially trained AI models that help doctors find cancer? Amazing! I'm here for it.
Specially trained AI models that help programmers find security bugs in their code? Good soup!
AI models that help summarize meetings or translate text or transcribe speech to text? Brilliant. More please.
Most of these specialized or task-based AI models are fairly energy efficient and fairly easy to keep private. They also aren't trained to replicate the copywritten works of creators.

I'm not an AI Luddite, I just believe we need to put appropriate guard rails in place to prevent (or at least limit) AI abuse.

[user_68]

Safety features did not exist before implementation of any of the AI searches (or AI anything else) - which makes AI predatory in ways users have no control over unless we all have computer science degrees.  I suspect corporate users of AI are making some type of monetary profit from its use, or it would not be foisted on is from every direction.

[Glaug-Eldare]

I strongly disagree.

[CHaSeD]

You are entitled to your incorrect opinion. It doesn't change the fact that you're wrong, but you free to believe as you wish.

[Glaug-Eldare]

Whoops, misread

[roseng]

If Mozilla didnt want to be left behind, they'd add this as an extension to gauge interest, and would find other ways to let users seek these tools out rather than just plopping it in the browser directly.

The only reason to do the rollout in this way theyve done it is if you want to force the feature on users because, say, you have a new CEO who cares more about drawing investors like google than about providing a good product for the userbase, and google and microsoft and every other tech company thats poured an inordinate amount of money into IA is demanding that everyone else do the same despite it straightforwardly and obviously being another bubble like NFTs and crypto before it.

[chrismon]

Agreed. The minute I see anything like 'AI Overview' placed higher in search results, as Chrome is now doing, I'm gone. I just switched to Firefox after about 15 years of deleting it every time it appeared on my desktop because of this. Information without sources is not reliable information, whatever Google tries to shove down our throats.

[niakurondi]

Ditto that. I just came back to Firefox after about 10 years with Chrome. I'm done with literally every company that puts those three little stars and gimmicky marketing like "powered by AI" by their logo.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

To complement, this discussion.

AI Overview, is not related to Firefox.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1524068#answer-1750418
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1518067
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1494390#answer-1749386

[saturnleia]

Agreed. No AI in Firefox please.

[loopscatfaec]

I completely agree. I stopped using Google the day it started shoving "AI summaries" down my throat, and I'm a hair's breadth from moving over to Linux to get away from Copilot (although for now I've killed it via the registry). It doesn't add any value whatsoever; if I want to play with AutoCorrect 2.0, I'm perfectly capable of doing so without my web browser's help.

[RattyTatTat]

I actually did move to linux mint specifically to avoid generative "AI"

[Mizar]

Word, I'm still on Win 10 and won't change.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/add-google-quot-web-quot-search-as-search-engine-option/idi-p/5... ?