Share your feedback on the AI services experiment in Nightly

[asafko]

Hi folks, 

In the next few days, we will start the Nightly experiment which provides easy access to AI services from the sidebar. This functionality is entirely optional, and it’s there to see if it’s a helpful addition to Firefox. It is not built into any core functionality and needs to be turned on by you to see it. 

If you want to try the experiment, activate it via Nightly Settings > Firefox Labs (please see full instructions here). 

We’d love to hear your feedback once you try out the feature, and we’re open to all your ideas and thoughts, whether it’s small tweaks to the current experience or big, creative suggestions that could boost your productivity and make accessing your favorite tools and services in Firefox even easier.

Thanks so much for helping us improve Firefox!

[ffffff]

I believe the bigger issue to people isn't a perceived lack of ability to use models that are:

• Locally running
• Open source
• Trained on data you find acceptable

Rather, the core issue is that it seems Mozilla is promoting and incentivizing people to run models that are:

• Running on computers they don't own and have no control over
• Closed, proprietary, and in the hands of companies with horrible reputations
• Trained on data that people often find unacceptable or believe was unethically sourced

Furthermore, these models also:

• Consistently fail at delivering information in a safe and trustworthy manner
• Save data you provide them to use in furthering their objectives at the cost of user privacy

Even the Mozilla manifesto—I know it's not a rigid set of internal rules or anything, but just for the sake of argument—boldly states:

• 4. Individuals’ security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional.
  
  Throwing unaware users at OpenAI doesn't seem like a good way of protecting their privacy.

Then there are additional concerns, such as the tight coupling with the browser (due to reasonable limitations or not is beside the point), or the fact that Mozilla is, in a manner, endorsing and enabling these companies and their practices.

So it's understandable that this feature just isn't right to a lot of people.

I understand Firefox must remain a competitive browser if it wants to regain market share. I am aware that many are implementing similar features, and nobody wants to fall behind. I know that many users are, in fact, quite excited about this feature. Maybe the developers are, as well. Hell, even I admit I'd love to have a somehow technomagically ethically-sourced and ran LLM helping me around the web.

However, I imagine this is a very sensitive topic for a significant amount of people. There is a lot of frustration with current AI trends and big tech, especially among the most tech-aware users. I think it's safe to assume that if this reaches stable as it is, there will be much valid complaining and criticism towards Mozilla. Either you already knew this, or you didn't think far enough ahead.

Sadly, I'm not sure what's the right answer here. I sincerely hope you folks manage to figure it out.

But asking...

---

@Mardak wrote:

Are there privacy-focused models that you would recommend?

---

...with all respect, seems very tone-deaf considering all this.

[Mardak]

I asked about privacy-focused models because there was a specific comment about training data before it was edited and made anonymous.

[ffffff]

I see, I apologize for that, Mardak. Seems I assumed much.

Despite that, I hope the rest of my comment still provided some value. I was going to post something like it regardless, and just happened to read your response on my way there. The main point, of promotion, is my main concern with the feature.

[Mardak]

The current interface for listing compatible providers doesn't really promote any in particular, and similarly there's no default choice either as users get to decide to turn it on and which to use. Additionally, the sidebar allows for easy switching to different providers as yet another reminder to help people discover alternatives, and this will likely be helpful when we add more choices that could include local inference of open models trained with more ethically sourced data.

There is work in providers supporting passing in prompts and showing responses in the sidebar, and there's even more on Firefox's end for a local inference chatbot. Do you think it's reasonable to start with what's already working to provide value to those who would already be using an existing chatbot while we work on better alternatives?

[ffffff]

Sorry for the delay. I wrote a big reply trying to explain my thoughts, but apparently that wasn't posted. Either I forgot to click Reply, or Connect somehow ate it. A bit annoying, since this isn't the first time something like this happened, and there isn't even a draft saved on my profile... that makes me a little sad. Here's my attempt at recreating that comment:

I don't believe that because something is opt-in, has no default, and is easily switchable, it means you are incapable of promoting that thing. It took effort to put those options there, and Mozilla chooses which providers are easily picked with a click. People will be more likely to use those options. Most people will use those options. That is a form of promotion in itself, even if unintentional, even if smaller. Mozilla cannot claim to not be promoting these in some capacity when you take into account the full context of what including them as options means, long-term.

And I imagine the easy switching sidebar thing goes the other way around, too: given the trends we've seen in the field so far, even users that are painstakingly convinced to give future safe/open/private AI a chance will be able to quickly switch to a commercial alternative and see how much better they are (actual information quality notwithstanding, of course).

>Do you think it's reasonable to start with what's already working to provide value to those who would already be using an existing chatbot while we work on better alternatives?

That's a tough one. You should know that I'm very biased in this topic, so even if I try to answer from an objective point of view, my perspective is... not very positive. I do think it's relevant, though. So, to make an attempt:

It would be if the AI landscape wasn't currently such a nightmare. I believe releasing the feature with "only what's already working" will look quite bad. Mozilla might explain, we're working on offering better options soon, but then folks will ask, why didn't you do so from the start? And if the answer is we didn't want to be late to the market, well, that actually makes it worse. It feels rushed, and uncaring of the users who have a complicated relationship with the related technologies.

I know something in Nightly or Beta behind an option shouldn't be taken as released. Unfortunately, news travels fast and there's always people keeping an eye on and sharing what's happening in Nightly, and a lot of users don't fully grasp that—or might even forget it outright—in the heat of discussion. Even those aware of this might find themselves worried that, should they not make their voices heard loudly enough, it'll be too late to avoid something they consider bad. I don't say this to excuse rude people around the internet spreading misinformation, but to remind everyone that the human element can be difficult to handle even when you do everything right.

I think holding on until you have something better to show... will still make some people mad, of course, that's our lovely community. But I imagine it'd be significantly better, since Mozilla would have something more to show and point to than, respectfully, a chatbot sidebar that by default lets you easily pick between: questionable startup, shady startup, big tech, questionable startup, and finally, another questionable startup. All engaging in a controversial field with legislation years behind.

For comparison, everyone I've told about (and explained the context behind) project Bergamot has found it fascinating. It's bucking the trend, uncompromising, boldly stating: no, we will not surrender privacy for translations. We want both, and we'll have both. Meanwhile, most people I talk to about AI are tired and just about done with the topic (reminder: I'm biased). Releasing a sidebar that, to most users, only connects them with popular AI chatbots gives the impression that Mozilla is merely chasing a trend without deeper consideration.

I don't know how much more is within the scope of what you folks can reasonably be expected to do, though. What if it takes too long? What if it doesn't work well enough, or doesn't work at all? And if developers lose motivation, seeing a nearly complete feature languish instead of reaching users? If the situation changes and work has to be scrapped?

I don't have answers to these questions, which is why I end up considering more extreme options despite not really liking them, such as halting development of the feature altogether, for now.

Hope that helps.

[Mardak]

Mozilla works in the open transparently and collaboratively with the community so that we can explore, iterate and learn from feedback on the way to releasing a feature for the diverse general audience. Practically some things won't be as polished early on especially this feature that relies on what chatbots and/or models are compatible.

Since we began this exploration, there's been significant progress in AI landscape such as https://llamafile.ai now with OLMo-7B (Open Language Models) allowing people to locally run a private open-source model trained on open data, so this feature supporting user choice could help grow even more truly open-source LLM efforts. However, this also isn't quite practical for average Release users, so again should we have waited until all of these are ready and polished before we even start landing code in Nightly?

[ffffff]

I think it depends on what Mozilla intends for this feature to be as it reaches stable Release.

Does Mozilla plan to, as an example, allow running a local model with the same effort as other options by an average user? As in, with Firefox managing download, installation and running the model for less tech-savvy users.

If deeper integration of local/open AI is...

• Considered a "nice to have", but nonessential for launch of the feature on stable, I'm against the feature entirely. We'll simply agree to disagree, and I'll refrain from commenting further as to not hinder discussion for the interested.
• Definitely in the plans, regardless of the implementation, I understand putting the feature in nightly to help development and start the feedback cycle. I've thought some more about what you said, and the opt-in nature definitely helps, here.
• Undecided, that's understandable, but please say so clearly and explain the current situation if possible. In this case, putting it in nightly seems risky, though I'm sure you have your reasons. I would argue against the feature reaching Beta while this remains undecided.

Maybe I missed a statement, but I've only seen mentions of possibilities, no concrete plans.

>This chatbot feature *is compatible with* locally running llamafile
>when we add more choices that *could include* local inference of open models
>You *can configure* a custom provider to any url including those running on a local server

I'd really like it if Mozilla clearly and explicitly stated its plans regarding integration of local and/or open language models for this feature.

[onionella]

Sorry, but even if OLMo markets itself as an "open" model built from public domain data, it isn't that. A quick look at their dataset shows that the largest source of data is Common Crawl, which absolutely contains copyrighted content.

[meias]

I understand that the purpose of this discussion is to promote community engagement in the AI so that there might be more adoption from those most involved and thus create a better product, but at the core of it those who care most about the product see this addition as a wrong path. It seems like the discussion at large has shown that the core audience of the browser do not want AI, and that chasing this dragon will only lead to financial peril and a frustrated user base.

[Mardak]

Are you suggesting that those who use ChatGPT or other any AI would not be core Firefox users and wouldn't be interested in using Firefox more even if it improved their experience and privacy?

[IBBoard]

In what way would Firefox integration improve the privacy of a ChatGPT user?

Either they are a paid-up OpenAI customer and have contractual terms that say that their data won't be used for training, or they're using a free account and they're willingly (or unknowningly) throwing their privacy out of the window.

No amount of integration in a browser (or OS, or other app) is going to change that fundamental hyper-funded AI corp vs user balance.

And no, having other models available won't change much either. If they're a ChatGPT user then they'll see ChatGPT and use it. If they become concerned about their privacy then they'll look for other options using a search engine. No amount of "these options are in a list that most people will look at once, set to their preferred option, and then never touch again" is going to materially impact user behaviour.

[onionella]

Sorry, but user privacy is not the only thing here. There are no large language models with any meaningful capabilities that are not trained on stolen copyrighted data. That in itself is a privacy violation of millions of third party people. Doesn't matter if the model's weights are open source. It is still built from stolen data.

[BlorgBlorgBlorg]

No, because, as you are aware, such models do not exist. It would be more honest to either not respond to AI critics at all, or directly tell them you (and Mozilla) don't care about their concerns.

[xenianth]

you keep replying to people giving critiques over the privacy issues of all LLMs with requests for... LLMs without privacy issues? you aren't even reading what you're replying to. we're all saying the entire thing is needless and ethically unsound, not that we want you to use different models.

[thomy2000]

Please stop destroying Firefox, pretty please.

Also, this is already possible. It's called tabs and copy paste. Those who want to use plagiarism machines can do it that way.

[aminought]

People are also plagiarism machines. You and me. So what? Mozilla must go to such experiments, otherwise it will be left out. This is progress, and the people who prevent it are no better for me than green activists: they do nothing themselves and do not let others do it.

[thomy2000]

🐑

[tribbleglorp]

It is a good thing to be left out of a fad. Fads are fleeting and everyone ends up worse for going along with the obviously terrible idea once the bubble has popped.

[Kwonunn]

"This is progress"

If this is progress then progress can jump off a cliff.

[Mardak]

Are you referring to the Summarize option responding too similarly to the original text? Do you have suggestions for alternative prompts that are less likely to repeat previous works?

[ffffff]

He might be referring to the larger discussion around LLMs generating output that is eerily similar to the training inputs. "Plagiarism machine" is a term used derogatorily by people against current uses and production of the tech to refer to popular AI and LLM models that took the world by storm. See the Copilot case for a related example. In general, this discussion around the internet also touches upon the morality of LLM training using enormous datasets composed of many works whose authors did not consent to it, and who wish not to be included.

[wutongtaiwan]

Firefox can now have multiple chatbots, but none of them can be used in China, so I recommend adding chatbots from China. For example, ERNIE bot, the Chinese name of this bot is called “文心一言”. And the other one is Kimi Chat.  Their official website:  Kimi Chat • SmartAI   文心一言 (baidu.com)  

[Mardak]

Do you know if these chatbots support passing in prompts with ?q= A quick test of https://yiyan.baidu.com/?q=你好 doesn't seem to work.

[wutongtaiwan]

This AI bot requires an account login, which may be due to this reason why it does not work

[danyeaw]

As a user, I want a great performant web browser, I don't want LLM features integrated at all. If Firefox wants to work on this, it should only be offered as an extension.

[Mardak]

Have you noticed a decrease in performance when the feature is disabled or even enabled but not open?

[mega]

Obviously it'd take even longer to build.

[facni]

It would be nice if we were able to do right-click over the chatbot's panel to, for example, copy, paste and translate text or take screenshots.

[Mardak]

Thanks for the feedback. It seems like we should be able to add the right-click menu to the sidebar at least with copy and paste as those should already work with keyboard shortcuts, e.g., ctrl-c / cmd-c. Others like translate might need some additional work to get the appropriate text from the sidebar content.

[AdventureGamer]

NO. No, no, no, no, NO. NO AI in the last bastions of privacy on the internet!!! What the hell!!!!!!!!

[Emmic]

when are we going to get a post like this on the new toolbar and url box thing that's just come to nightly? because I have many thoughts about that for firefox to pretend to care about....

[KellyClowers]

The local PDF image alt text generation is an example of a good and useful "AI" feature.
This "AI chatbot" stuff is a an example of a bad and stupid "AI" feature. Not many people want this, those that do can install an extension or something. The LLMs use too many resources, and for at best very little benefit. Most of the time there is no or even negative benefit. This is not something Mozilla should be using or promoting. Granted, it is a fad that will be over in a couple years anyway most likely, but even in the mean time you shouldn't be supporting it.

[ffffff]

Yes! I was so happy when I saw the alt text generation plans, because it was the first time any tech organization I follow announced a use of AI that not only was I not disappointed with, but was actually excited for. It showed that there are plenty yet unexplored and helpful use cases of AI that don't involve the endorsement and promotion of unethical big tech companies and their products.

[Mardak]

Would you expect Mozilla to do something similar to Common Voice and image-to-text training data but for LLMs?

[ffffff]

I don't know, Mardak. While the idea sounds beautiful in principle, as I mentioned in another comment, that feels dangerously close to a moonshot. Big data seems to be the name of the game, so I doubt Mozilla could ever hope to catch up to the big players who crawled all the internet. Expecting that feels unfair and akin to setting both parties up for disappointment, along with a hefty waste of resources.

[Mardak]

Are you saying a local LLM would be good or bad? Something optimized to use low resources for securely handling private data could have more benefit than existing chatbots for some users.

[Honeebunny]

Booooo!! I expected better from Firefox, but you're just proving that companies as a whole don't have or care about ethics. Disgusting.

[MarryAurora12]

best

[meias]

Absolutely not. There was a post from Proton on mastodon recently that said something to the effect of AI is inevitable. I take problem with such a stance as it really does not have to be inevitable. On the contrary, the only inevitable thing about AI is that it will inevitably cause harm. Stealing information to train the model, causing massive amounts of environmental damage due to the resources needed to power it. This is not the path we need to go down.

I understand Mozilla is trying it's best to stay relevant, and to bring people back to Firefox. But we shouldn't be trying to stoop to the levels of the people we are purporting to be better than. A true genuine focus on the mission to serve people's needs, not the needs of corporate investors, is how we achieve that.

[cannoness]

I have no use for this feature; I just ran away from Chrome and back to Firefox recently over AI/privacy and it looks like I'll be leaving again for a browser not falling into the hype. I am saying this as someone who writes AI Software professionally, not a "change resistant user." Consider your audience.