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!

[amyers]

Please read the room 

[nkh]

I have strong negative feelings towards this feature, and based on the replies to this post, it seems many others share similar feelings.

I believe that Mozilla tries to act in the best interest of its users, so you must have a good reason for this addition. So, I'd like to know the reason that you're working on it. Specifically, there are two estimates I want to know:
What is the percent of current users who want this feature?
How many users will Firefox gain over some period of time because of this feature?
I realize that the sample of the Firefox community that interacted with this post is not a random one and is probably biased, so I have no idea what these figures may be, but I assume you do.

For people who value their privacy and want to chat with an LLM can already use DuckDuckGo AI Chat. I say this because it seems to me like you're re-inventing the wheel (but making a worse one!) with this feature.

Furthermore, this seems out-of-scope for a browser.

I'd have to switch browsers if I couldn't disable it completely, so please keep it opt-in or at the very least opt-out, because I love Firefox and I don't want to switch.

[MonFal]

would really prefer if you didn't

[heyjeffreymoore]

I think just generally speaking, I recommend Firefox to everyone for two main reasons: no bloat, and high security/privacy. Like, Mozilla putting privacy as a top priority means a lot to me and has built up my trust in Firefox for years.

Adding even the option to turn on a tool that is anathema to privacy, right in the browser, is enough that I would never recommend the browser to a novice again.

Why? Because a novice can't understand how dangerous enabling AI in their browser could be. It sounds fun. It isn't safe. A novice can't easily understand that.

I get trying to attract a bigger market share with today's youth being more and more dependent on AI services, but this isn't the way. This can't be the way for an organization that has always always put the safety and privacy of its users first.

Please kill this before it gets any traction. This isn't you.

[angecalhe]

No, for the love of anything, Firefox is the only real browser left and the only one I use for this very reason. No AI here!

[Dean1]

No. If Firefox starts using AI features, I'll find another browser.

[eselle28]

No. Please don't. The other browsers are all contaminated with this bull**bleep**, and Firefox was one of the few places where users didn't have to worry about it creeping into their browsing. It's hard to trust that something so unethical will stay opt in only and corralled off from the rest of our services and data.

[Roy_DCM]

I've been using Firefox for 20 years, and I despise AI. It is nothing but trouble. Most NFTs were created by AI. There are countless reports about how this version of AI is unsustainable.

Do yourself a Favor, avoid the embarrassment - do not implement AI features.

[HorseCage]

I don't want or need access to a garbage, plagiarising, environmentally disastrous fad

[prismatic]

I have been using Firefox since it first started and AI integration is both the thing that would philosophically stop me using it and recommending it to other people. There is some place for the tools that AI brings to this world such as some proven uses in medicine but ChatGPT is not one of them - it's also based on theft to enrich people already rich and it's really, really bad for the environment, too.

I am very disappointed that you're even trialing this, let people who insist on using AI make their own addons and don't make the browser laggier for the rest of us!

[anon789]

Please no.

[gavingrant]

Hi, please do not do this. AI is a climate warming disaster and I want no part in it here or anywhere else.

[Carrie7]

NO it's a pox on technology and should be shunned by you and every other tech entity.

[Kazard]

Hey, don't.

[SeraphRDM]

Absolutely NOT. No one asked for this. Please stop shoe-horning AI into every bloody thing, thank you.

[IamJoseph]

One thing I like about you is you're not creeps with my data

If you're using ai you have to be scrutinizing my input which means you're being creeps with my data

I'll stop using Mozilla if you bring in AI

[ClumsyMinty]

People are finally picking Firefox over Chrome because of LLMs. LLMs are garbage, work like garbage and should not be integrated into everything, AI is good at very specific and very niche tasks. Firefox has an opportunity to market as the browser option with no LLM garbage, the browser for sensible people who just want to access websites and search. If Firefox adds LLM features, it's just following Edge and Chrome, there's nothing to differentiate Firefox from it's competition. By shunning AI features, Firefox can present itself as the browser for the Anti-AI crowd, which is already a majority of consumers in Europe and North America. Focus on useful things like improving performance and power efficiency for laptops or tab docking or other features that users have been requesting for years.

[maeamian]

Are you **bleep**ing serious? Absolutely not. Remove it and never try this **bleep** again.

[kalle_katt]

No

[Maferep]

Genuine question,trying to be fair here: Why would anyone want this to be built into Firefox?

For context, AI is already built into most widely used mainstream services. In Google, your default search engine, it can't even be turned off. Even if the user likes AI it's completely redundant to make Firefox a part of it and just adds bloat.

[AbandonedRocket]

I echo all the other sentiments here that embracing this is bad form from the folks who make the only browser that I like.

I made my profile here just to post this. I do not want this to be in Firefox, plain and simple.

[AbandonedRocket]

Also, if the money people are watching this thread, I've been considering Mozilla VPN now that I have the means to pay for such a service.

I'm going to consider other options for the time being.

[WhatzitTuuyah]

Check out mullvad! Doesn't get much more private than them.

[qu1j0t3]

I won't use Firefox if it incorporates 'ai' junk. You should take a firm stand against it and assist users in blocking and finding alternatives to any 'ai' products (e.g. google search). This is the way to increase your adoption.

[Aelfgifu1]

Stop forcing garbage AI on people. It doesn't work and no one wants it.

[NyxieNeon]

DO NOT.

I do not know what the "4th Option" is for browsers currently but if you do this I will be switching.

[SquirrelGirl]

I've been using Firefox since the early days and have stuck with it, even as companies like Google have undermined it by making it difficult to use with their products

I'm concerned that this LLM "AI" integration will mean I have to switch away from Firefox, as I've seen the real harm these models are doing to workers' rights, to information on the web, and to the environment

"AI" as we are calling these models is causing real precarity for so many creative people, and I would like Mozilla to abandon these plans, thank you

[ProfCookie]

No please no!

[blahpers]

Do not do this.

Users do not want it.  Many will drop Mozilla completely.  A significant number will go out of their way to discourage others from using Firefox and other Mozilla programs as well.

Note that I don't even have to get into the pros/cons of genAI to evaluate this—just the loss of user sentiment would be catastrophic.

Just don't

[Drewbahr]

Absolutely not. I don't want, and never wanted, any of this AI garbage in my browser. Please, don't fall down the **bleep**hole with everyone else.

[dirkhh]

Just don't.

Seriously. No.

Not needed, not wanted.

[mgrobol]

As a firefox user since 1.0, a nightly tester since before it was called nightly and a researcher in NLP: please don't.

[dfarn]

NO.

I do NOT want this.  Generative AI is an energy hog built on massive plagiarism and copyright violation.  You do not need it, your users do not want it, and you should stop trying to make it happen.

[teddysalad]

Dear god please no.

[alisonborealis]

I have been using firefox since ~2006. This is my first time leaving a comment, but I am leaving a comment because my ongoing use of Firefox depends on this issue.

I have ABSOLUTELY ZERO INTEREST in supporting AI implementation on Firefox.

The things that make Firefox appealing are anathema to AI. You cannot have a "more secure" browser if you implement AI. You cannot have a browser that respects people's self-created content if you implement AI. You cannot have a browser that makes using the internet more streamlined and effective if you implement AI. You cannot have a browser that respects people's privacy if you implement AI. These are not challenges. These are realities.

AI, as we all know, was built on plagiarism, copyright infringement and outright theft. Without theft, AI wouldn't work. Without ongoing theft, AI will not improve - we've seen the data on models degrading when they train on model outputs instead of raw data; AI needs the raw data (which nobody is ethically sourcing). As we've seen Google Search and Google Scholar degrade to the point of uselessness because of the addition of AI, we know that adding AI to browsers increases false and misinformation via the LLMs outright lying, manufacturing facts, and "hallucinating" information.

It seems counterproductive for Firefox to implement AI (particularly if Mozilla wants to retain or grow its userbase). As we're witnessing the growing use of AI in deepfakes and revenge porn, and in replacing actual work by real human beings, if Mozilla wants to respect the safety, privacy, and employability of its users, it does not benefit Mozilla (reputationally or practically) to implement AI on Firefox or any of its other products.

If Mozilla values its users, Firefox will not implement AI.

[alisonborealis]

All of my preceding post, of course, fails to include the dire environmental impacts of AI. As far as easily-accessible information indicates, every AI out there consumes enormously disporoprtionate resources for the value of the (often incorrect and plagiarized) outputs. AIs contribute to electricity and water consumption to an extent that is shockingly detrimental to the environment and is exacerbating climate change (as none of these emissions of fossil fuel exhaust and water vapour - both GHGs - were ever calculated for or anticipated in existing climate models).

If Mozilla cares, which I'd been led to think it does, Mozilla will not implement AI on its products.

[owallstromer]

The so-called AI you are implementing has nothing to do with intelligence. It's LLM algorithms, glorified Markov chains that have been trained on stolen data by some of the least ethical techbros you can find and they use insane amounts of energy for no tangible benefits when humanity is in dire need of needing to scale down its use of energy.

I have to assume someone at mozilla is getting courted/bribed by the increasingly desperate LLM peddlers who are failing to deliver on their huge promises (because an LLM can NEVER do the things they claim are "just around the corner", it's just not possible) while their existing product has little use outside of novelty joke prompts and spreading disinformation. They are desperate because their product is both useless and expensive and the VC fund guys are starting to wise up to the fact that they will not be getting their money back and thus everyone involved is now doing their best to cram AI into everything in the hope that they can simply overwhelm consumers into capitulating and paying extra for those AI features they never use or wanted in the first place.

Basically, what's happening is that some people started inventing plagiarism machines that run on combustion engines and when no one wanted them the people who had already invested in this **bleep** started to force it into their other products so that you couldn't get a new appliance without it also including a plagiarism machine and a combustion engine and designing the new appliances so that the plagiarism machine would turn on and burn some gas anytime you tried to do something while also spying on you.

Then, in the next phase, they're gonna point at the plagiarism machines and say "look, these things are expensive to run on those huge combustion engines, so we're gonna charge a higher price now". The whole business idea is to more-or-less force us to pay extra for a machine we never wanted and also burn up the whole **bleep** planet at the same time.

It's baffling that you would jump on this catastrophical racket and if you're not even getting bribed for it, it's just sad. Who is this for? The libertarian gamer dudes and Joe Rogan fans that still believe in crypto (the climate destroying scam before LLM AI) and think the Cybertruck looks cool? Let them download a plugin or an app or something then instead of copying Microsoft and Google and make it a core "feature".  

I really don't want to go through the hassle of changing my primary web browser but if this is implemented permanently I will do it and I will gladly help every bloody friend and relative I am the go-to tech support for to do the same.


TL; DR: this is a horrible idea and you shouldn't do it.

[sensitivesydnee]

do not want

[Gryps2]

AI products have yet to demonstrate an actual value to their user base. Primarily they seem to be vehicles for venture capitalism or plagiarism. Given their unethical training and extremely resource intense nature, I would advise against incorporating them into Firefox.

[besssjay]

AI is bad for the environment and society, please do not jump on this bandwagon.