06-21-2024 11:55 AM - last edited on 10-18-2024 02:19 PM by Jon
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!
09-09-2024 03:17 PM
No thanks.
I don’t want AI in Firefox in any form. If you do this, I will have to search another browser.
Nuti
09-09-2024 03:18 PM
PLEASE. begging you not to do this, everywhere online is filled with AI slop already, please don't give us yet another AI assistant.
09-09-2024 03:19 PM
Do you understand your own user base, or what's left of it?
If I wanted mansplaining-as-a-service sprinkled with bull**bleep** in my browser I'd use Chrome or Edge.
I'd rather not.
09-09-2024 03:20 PM
Plz no.... Ai is just en**bleep**tification software, and firefox is the last bastion of sane browsers 😭
09-09-2024 03:22 PM
Please do not. Privacy and AI do not go together. I love Firefox because it is one of the only browsers not completely inundated with AI.
09-09-2024 03:22 PM
Is there a way to opt out of AI in the Firefox browser? I came to Firefox to escape the Google monolith and to have more data privacy, and I am not interested in any AI in my browser that I cannot opt out of.
09-09-2024 03:25 PM
I don't want this at all, as a feature or as an option. Please don't integrate AI into our browsers. It's a privacy concern and a red flag in terms of where the company is headed if they think this is a good idea.
09-09-2024 03:29 PM
I'm sure there are countless other high priority things that can get done besides AI. Any of these "AI is already being used!!!" arguments are wrong. Form selection/fill or URL page suggestion or translators have been done for decades. Adding functionality for summarizing a page or naming a group of tabs automatically(????) is not something a majority of people want and is not worth the effort to implement. Giving support to the AI industry encourages the unethical training practices and illegal data harvesting that all large AI relies on. We are all here to support Firefox and the values it represents and don't want it scumming to mainstream big tech VC overhyped slop.
09-09-2024 03:29 PM
Please don’t. I don’t want ai in my Firefox.
09-09-2024 03:29 PM
AI is environmentally disastrous, unethical, and deeply terrible. Please stop.
09-09-2024 03:31 PM
We need AI implemented like we need a McDonald's at the top of Mt Everest. There is not a single software or web service I use that has implemented AI to any useful end. It becomes an obnoxious feature I try to turn off because it never actually serves a need. The AI tools that actually DO things (edge detection in photo editing software for instance) honestly aren't applicable here.
Don't waste resources on adding junk.
09-09-2024 03:31 PM
Please don't. I already hate the AI in google and I use firefox specifically because you guys are the most honest and well-run browser, and I don't want to see you guys make the same mistake all the other companies are making. Not only that, AI is HORRIBLE for the planet. Please do not insert AI. If you choose to go forward despite everyone telling you 'no', then at least make it to where it can be turned off. But please, just NO. NO AI.
09-09-2024 03:33 PM
Remove this feature. Firefox, of all browsers, should not be getting caught up in the AI hype train. Take the high ground, please and remove this environmental catastrophe and pollution of the information commons.
09-09-2024 03:35 PM
AI services are already bloating every other service on the internet, PLEASE don't add useless and needless features!
09-09-2024 03:35 PM
i don't want AI, stop trying to force AI on us. NO ONE WANTS AI LEAVE US ALONE AND TAKE IT OUT OF THE BROWSER. DO NOT JUST DISABLE IT, FULLY REMOVE IT FROM THE BROWSER AND GET IT OFF MY DEVICES. You want an AI companion? make an extension, don't be yet another company hopping on the supercharged plagiarism train... I have absolutely zero trust in AI and standing by it as a company reduces my trust in you too. Depending on the outcome of this I may need to reconsider paying for Firefox relay if this is how you're wasting it. Directionally, I don't know if I can keep advocating that people use Firefox and Mozilla's various services if you can't stick to your principles.
09-09-2024 03:39 PM
No, I don't want this feature AT ALL. This feels like another institution that had carved out their niche, found that they lose supporters to competitors and, instead of improving on what made them distinct from their competition, try to incorporate as many features of those competitors as possible in hope of winning those lost back, in turn straying from their defining values, alienating more loyal supporters and failing to get back those they lost because, when in doubt, the original version of the feature that caused the departure is "better" most of the time or the difference at least not worth the cost of switching back.
09-09-2024 03:39 PM
Absolutely not. This would make me switch to a different browser, honestly.
09-09-2024 03:41 PM
Please DO NOT implement AI with Firefox. All AI does is steal art, misinform people, and cause problems. I don't want to look at jumbled words a computer came up with, I want actual results from real humans.
I made a Mozilla account just to respond to this post but I am a long time Firefox user. I stopped using Google completely because of their insistence on using AI. I will absolutely drop Firefox for the same reason.
09-09-2024 03:41 PM
I don't think the environmental damage would be defensible even if it did something experience-enhancing and useful, which it manifestly does not.
09-09-2024 03:41 PM
I started using Firefox to avoid the invasive rubbish other browsers had been implementing, please don't shove thieving generative ai slop into the only good browser we have left! if you claim to care about the planet at all then the sheer amount of resources that get wasted on this is enough of a reason to stop, let alone the ethical and moral minefield that is stealing other people's work to power the ai. nobody asked for this!!!
09-09-2024 03:43 PM
Omg no please no
09-09-2024 03:45 PM
I have switched browsers to firefox exactly because I do not want to be anywhere near any AI usage and because of privacy concerns. If firefox implements this feature, optional or not, I will drop this browser like a hot potato. AI services have become a hallmark of privacy violations and data being used without one's consent. You say this will not violate your user's privacy, but where are you getting the data from that the AI will be using? AI scrapes data from the internet without consent being even a question. Other users have already pointed this out, but there are tons of ethical and environmental concerns. If you want your userbase to rapidly drop in numbers, go ahead and get involved with AI. I think this is honestly the stupidest thing you could do, given that so many users have come to you exactly because other browsers use AI and do not care about privacy. I saw other people recommend Firefox to me over and over in this manner and that's the reason I started using it.
You should drop any attempts at integrating AI into the browser or any of your products and seriously reconsider the ethical and environmental issues caused by this, as well as what your userbase wants. Because this is the exact opposite of it.
Until this issue is resolved I'll stop updating this browser, and if you continue to go down this alley, I will stop using it entirely. Please reconsider this. There are many people who really don't want to stop using Firefox.
09-09-2024 03:44 PM
there's no ethical way to follow the llms fad lads this is a serious black mark on firefox's otherwise excellent record
09-09-2024 03:48 PM
I am glad you are trying this as an opt in experiment. I choose not to use ai because of the enormous power usage needed for generative AI, the way it is often misused and trained on content that it should not be, and how frequently it generates misinformation. I do not plan to turn on this feature. I hope the users of Firefox feel the same way and you see results that guide you not to continue adding AI features to the web browser.
09-09-2024 03:47 PM
No AI please!
09-09-2024 03:51 PM
i consider Firefox my browser of choice BECAUSE of the privacy factor and now lack of AI. i won't be happy to continue supporting if I'm forced to suffer with its direct integration. if Firefox/Mozilla values privacy as much as it states, they will not utilise data-scraping and inherently invasive AI into their browser.
a firm and resounding NO from me.
09-09-2024 03:52 PM
Absolutely not.
09-09-2024 03:52 PM
Please do not. I beg of you. It adds nothing of value. It's a waste or resources and space on the browser.
There are legitimate uses for an AI out there in technology and even medicine that I am a firm supporter of. Cramming a bunch of AI into browsers is just gaudy in my opinion. I know some of the reasons people think users want AI. However here's the problems with AI.
1. They lack the ability to vet the information they are given. In short if someone told an AI the sky is green, without any counter point, the AI will say the sky is green.
2. The resource intensive nature of using AI nowadays.
3. Catering to people who are lazy and potentially stealing content to feed the machine.
As I mentioned I do support appropriate uses for AI, like helping doctors scan for cancer cells or maybe helping people who suffered strokes. Or other things where AI can do a lot of good. I feel that using it on a browser is just not the right move.
09-09-2024 03:54 PM
Don't do that.
09-09-2024 03:54 PM
I'm sorry to say I also disapproved of adding LLMs in their current state to Firefox. Although they could improve Firefox, they need to be running locally and built with data that is ethically sourced and can be verified by the community. Even then the benefits are dubious, but at least local means low environmental impact and strong privacy protections, and open data sets means no systematic theft or invisible biases.
09-09-2024 03:56 PM
Please do not add ai to firefox
09-09-2024 04:01 PM
Please no. Don’t sully the browser with this AI garbage.
09-09-2024 04:02 PM
Please don't
09-09-2024 04:03 PM
please please please do not add generative ai to firefox it is the last bastion of the interwebs untainted by profit seeking bull**bleep** like ai please please please do not do this
09-09-2024 04:03 PM
Don't do this
I'm barely recommending friends and family switch off chrome to Firefox as is it.
If you have to do it, make it a first party add-on in the add-on store.
But please for the love of duck do not implement any AI into any product or service.
It's not useful, it's not ethical, it's a fad that executives are getting FOMOed into prioritizing and it's getting annoying.
Stop.
09-09-2024 04:05 PM
please do not
09-09-2024 04:07 PM
I use Firefox to avoid AI.
I work in tech and I'm so, so sick of getting inundated with AI. I do not want it.
09-09-2024 04:08 PM
Please do not bake AI into the browser. At most make it an extension. There's plenty of people who want nothing to do with AI and if you really want to jump on the bandwagon an extension would be the way to do that without making people too mad. Optimally I'd want it out of the browser entirely but I'm aware investors are big on AI despite the fact that I've not seen much in terms of legitimate practical uses for it.
09-09-2024 04:10 PM
I do not want any AI generative content please and thank you.
09-09-2024 04:11 PM
Absolutely not. I use Firefox to avoid nonsense like this. I'm young enough to have been forced into a walled garden with my tech, locked into the controlled and rigid Google and Apple ecosystems, and I had to do a lot of learning to break out of that prison and learn how computers actually work. Firefox should empower people to use the internet to the fullest, not encourage them to live under the rule of mysterious "black box" technology that hides how things really happen.
...All of that is ignoring the environmental concerns of water and power usage, the ethical concerns of many AI models being trained on scraped works without permission, and—most relevant to Mozilla's stated mission—the privacy and security concerns.
Frankly, I find it embarassing that this would even be considered. This makes it harder for me to recommend Firefox to people. If I'm trying to help people take back control of their online lives, the last thing I want is to encourage them to use "AI" services.