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!

[Michael_Mock]

Please no, just don't do it.

[Wolvereaux]

I'd rather not have AI features on firefox - tbh, a feature to turn off Google's automatic AI features would be stellar!

[boldiegoldie]

no

[apz]

I get it that jumping on the AI hype train can prevent the tech-FOMO for software developers, but in this case could we just have this feature as something that can be completely yanked out. I'd hate if I'd have to put one more thing on my long list of software and products I avoid so I don't have to deal with the force-fed AI "features".

[bogwitch]

Don't. Honestly, can any of you just listen to your god **bleep** user base for once.

[PlutonianCicada]

Absolutely not interested in AI, and disappointed to see Firefox employing it even as an optional feature. No one wants this.

[cristianer]

Contrary to most here, I like AI in the sidebar. Just add the most used ones and better if they are open source like Llama. Thanks.

[w200338]

Simply put: no.

[mans]

This is great as long as we can turn it off when we decide to. Just implementing a feature and shoving it down our throats is not right, meaning when there is no turn off button for the feature.

[Illian]

No, thank you.  Besides the issues with copyright and trademark from how they are resourced, their accuracy is negligible if not non-existent.

[Did]

Yay. I just love having glorified spambots and misinformation machines shoved down my throat in literally every aspect of modern life. Get the **bleep** out of here with this tech bro dog**bleep**. What next, a firefox brand crypto scam? NFTs?

[freezi-drink]

Please don't keep this. Firefox was one of the only places I trusted for reliable searching, and the addition of generative AI will make me stop using it.

[p4riah]

the current implementation of 'AI' in tech is a total scam. it steals. it lies. it makes things up, but it also violates everyones privacy routinely at all levels. it is harmful in the extreme.

many of us use firefox to try and claw back some semblance of privacy in our digital life. integrating 'AI' tools into the platform, no matter how 'optional', is a complete betrayal of all of your users, the platform as a whole, and everything it stands for. the fact that there are people who work at firefox who would even contemplate such a blunder is itself a betrayal. that level of incompetence should result in firings at all levels.

the disengenuous and frankly lying responses being given by mozilla employees in this thread are incredibly disturbing. you cannot enhance privacy by integrating privacy destroying tech into the platform then 'offering alternatives'. there are no 'ai' models currently in existence that even come close to being compatible with mozillas mandate. this is clearly a top-down change being forced, and the gaslighting coming from mozilla staff in here is trying to manufacture consent for a feature no one wants.

the replies basically amount to 'everyone is using ai, we must expose our entire userbase to its privacy invasiveness in order to offer them alternatives that are better' while those alternatives dont even exist. its gaslighting corporate nothing-speak that translates to 'we are adding this no matter what for shady reasons, come up with an excuse that sounds plausible and make us sound noble and the users sound reactionary'. its completely transparent and frankly, insulting in the extreme. every single person in this thread is being openly insulted by mozilla.

leave the 'AI' garbage external. let idiots and grifters install it as extensions. the rest of us want nothing to do with this poison. you add it to the software and it will rot it from within. no one will ever trust it again. i will never install a version of firefox that contains this nonsense, and i will go out of my way to tell everyone and anyone to avoid FF like the plague.

[WobblyPython]

No! God! Please! No!

[erad]

I have been actively rejecting any service that uses AI. I won't hesitate to drop firefox too.

[kaija]

This type of AI makes me sad and I think people who use it are stupid. If you make me look at another thing that pushes AI I will cry. (and look into new browsers.)

[MelMellon]

BACK OUT OF THIS NOW. A huge part of Firefox's appeal in the market is that its the morally correct choice - not for-profit, no user data hoarding, no en**bleep**tification. Implementing AI technologies - built on stealing the work of others online - is a surefire way to burn bridges with a vast majority of your userbase.

[aperkinsva7arp]

No.

Firefox is a perfectly serviceable web browser that I can use to find AI services if and when I want them.  There's no need for any kind of quick access - users can already bookmark sites and sort their bookmarks.

Also, AI trash SEO articles have already made web search practically unusable - I don't need a direct hotline to hallucinated "facts" in my web browser itself, the search engines have that part covered!

[motioti]

I do not want added AI functionality in my browser. It has already infected most websites I don’t want it

[cubiclegrrl]

Oh, HELLZ no.  Stop burning down the planet to shove unwanted bandwagon-jumping features down people's throats.  Cut it right TF out now.

[rkcurtis2597]

I think you should reconsider this idea, and would in fact caution against introducing any sort of AI programs. Generative “AI” services may be popular right now, but the downsides far outweigh the benefits. First, the amount of water and energy required for them is simply unsustainable. The use of generative “AI” has been found to be worsening climate change. This alone leads many environmentally conscious individuals, myself included, to be strongly against it. This is in addition to the fact the “AI” in its current form is not at all intelligent (hence why I’m putting quotes around it). It hallucinates information that is often untrue simply based on sequences of words it thinks should go together, with no way of fact-checking it. This can endanger users who receive this misinformation, and is a serious issue that shows no sign of improving anytime soon. Finally, Firefox has always prided itself on being privacy-focused. Many users chose it for that reason. However, “AI” programs are known to invade the privacy of internet users, “training” themselves by scraping their writing, art, and personal information without permission. Allowing these programs to be part of Firefox is counter to the goals Mozilla has stated. For these reasons, I do not believe that environmentally wasteful, misinformation-generating, privacy-invading generative “AI” technology should be part of Firefox. 

[TravestyHat]

God, no. Can you read the room? AI is a wasteful blight that makes search results worse.

[Haleigh]

No one asked for this. No one wants this. Do not add it. Simple as that.

[ETL]

NO AI. Mozilla, there are so many better features you could be developing besides jumping on the Misinformation Machine hype train.

To provide a bit nore substantive feedback: Have you noticed how every major company that introduced an AI feature had to almost immediately remove it, or heavily revamp and restrict it? GENERATIVE AI IS NOT RELIABLE. It cannot reliably summarize, it cannot reliably search, and it cannot reliably perform tasks. It's flashy and it's great at giving the appearance of sophistication, but it is absolutely money pit, both in terms of development, to try to make it do anything useful and stop producing "hallucinations" (giving a confident-sounding answer that is completely untrue), and in terms of environmental costs, as the server infrastructure required to process AI queries guzzles water and electricity.

Keep focusing on browser speed, security, and privacy. These are what draw people to Mozilla products, not hyped-up tech bubbles.

[pompom8992]

Please no! I left Chrome for this reason!

[Arina]

NO

[rhonion]

do not want anything to do with AI in my browser, optional or otherwise

[No3]

NO THANK YOU. DO NOT BECOME CHROME. I AM HERE BECAUSE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE BETTER. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS BASIC ACCURACY, RESPECT OF AUTONOMY AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN GENERAL:

DO NOT! IMPLEMENT! AI!

[Koryuu]

AI= bad

AI= inaccurate information

AI= bad for the environment

just no. No AI please

[Anonymous]

No, absolutely not! One of the main reasons I use Firefox is the lack of AI garbage! It’s a pointless, useless, environmentally damaging and entirely negative waste of time and effort, and if Firefox implements AI, I will immediately switch to a different browser service and will not return. Frankly, it’s disappointing that this is even being considered

[aima123]

If Mozilla actually cared what its users thought, it wouldn't be trying this at all. Most people I know who use Firefox switched to it to avoid AI and everything wrong with other browsers. If Firefox jumps on the AI bandwagon like this (ignoring all the ethical and practical issues with AI), then myself and a bunch of other users will just jump ship to find another browser.

[GrinningJackal]

Not only is the process of generating AI answers one which has vast and devastating ecological impact, but adding AI functionality beyond the "did you mean" spellchecker, helps confuse viewers and spread misinformation. If Firefox offers an AI option, I will be finding a new browser. I'm sure many others feel the same.

[Charleson_Mambo]

NO!

I don't want AI on Firefox.

I will not use Firefox with AI anywhere on it.

[goblinal]

No. It's not helpful, it makes everything worse.

[TheJobberwock]

Please don't add AI. PLEASE. It just eats electricity for no real benefit. And that's besides all the AIs built on mountains of stolen data.

[AlexSeanchai]

Adding long-form-autocucumber to Firefox won't be enough of a disimprovement to send me back to anything Chromium based, but it will certainly be enough of a disimprovement for me to switch to a Firefox fork that isn't sucking AI venture capital and therefore isn't inherently untrustworthy.

[Foxgloves42]

Please don't!

[Ravenesque]

there is exactly no reason to force AI into the only usable browser currently available. i would like to continue being able to tell my friends that i like Firefox and recommending they switch the way i did. if you add this AI crap i will actively discourage the switch i've been pushing among my friends.

[jaylett]

Just another Firefox user here to say don't spend time on this in future. And I'll do so via the medium of the screenshot you posted:

1. If you want a summary of a wikipedia page, you can use the Simple English variant of Wikipedia. Which, lo! has an entry for red panda. And it's better than the summary HuFace made - in part because the article seems better than the Wikipedia en original, but also because the summary lacks obvious features of a summary, such as what the body length that the tail matches actually is, that it's endangered, or anything concrete about its evolution that might justify a "taxonomy and evolution" subheading rather than just "random other facts".

2. If you thought that summarize was a good feature, then why would you crowd so much of that output with AI crap around the edges? If I want a summary and you think I'll be happy with the quality of this output, why should I care that you generated it by doing some kind of prompt dance? Why would I want to upload a file as a next action? What would that even do? What are the six tools? If any of them is useful, why aren't they available as a toolbar of some form? I can't peer inside the mind of your product designer, but my assumption is because you decided to add a chatbot to Firefox, and that's what a chatbot looks like for some reason. Identify a user problem. Solve the user problem. Don't trip over the furniture.

3. What is that headline doing? "Red Panda - A Small Mammal with a Big Personality". The LLM has just made that up presumably because "a small X with a big personality" is a moderately common snowclone.

The screenshot doesn't sell this feature, it should bury it. It looks like a quick proof of concept that someone threw together because their boss had read that McKinsey thinks that Krug comes out of Sam Altman's nipples. Mozilla is supposed to be better than this.

[MelMellon]

Incredibly well done summary of all that's wrong with this