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!

[pdqsketch]

I do not want any AI generative content please and thank you.

[DKpsyhog]

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.

[argonautics]

please do not do this. a lot of users moved to firefox to escape other browsers lack of privacy and data mining. there is no way you can have AI and truly be privacy focused anymore. you're going to lose so many users over this if you move forward. we don't want another browser that is like every other one, firefox being different from everyone else is why we chose it.

[BookishActor]

Please do not!

[strb]

FU very much.

If people wanted a planet-burning chatbot instead of a browser, they would have asked for it.

[Leoo3o]

I have to say that hearing that Firefox has decided to try to implement AI into itself was a disappointment.

At this stage, it appears to be a simple enough bot with little to no malicious side effects in and of itself- however. I would have hoped that the fact that recent AI has been so destructive in its side effects on both the digital and physical environment would have stayed your hands from this path of action. The continuous, seemingly unstoppable, spread of misinformation accentuated by generative bots building off each other's incorrect information is a plight that has yet to be solved. Additionally, the cost running these AIs has on the planet's limited natural resources, and the way it contributes to global warming, is atrocious.

I cannot understate how frustrating it is to see Firefox jump on this AI trend as well without a solution to these issues being addressed in the undertaking.

[Bloomi]

I'm worried about the data security implications and the negative environmental impact this could have. Please don't have this become a standard feature.

[Gourd]

Remove the theft-powered chatbot waste of power.

[Kaith]

I'd personally rather it not be included in Firefox at all

I feel as though even including AI is usually bad optics; I get the sense that most people feel it's something forced upon them which they do not want to engage with.
But it also sorta gives me a sense like what the goal is here is not legitimate improvement but chasing trends. That makes me want to use firefox less.

[SecretlyKoishi]

Absolutely not. There's not a hamster's chance in a garbage disposal that this will ever be a good idea. Do not implement AI. The entire reason I switched to Firefox was to get away from privacy invasion and AI. This was supposed to be the escape from that, the safe haven. Do not add AI.

[layamr]

No. Absolutely not. This "AI" garbage is useless, data stealing, and destroys the environment. The only new ai related thing I want is the ability to block and remove anything to do with it. I will move to a new browser if it's added in any form.

[SSHSF]

No, do not do this. I don't need "suggestions" or "assistance" or any of the other purportedly "useful" things associated with this. I use Firefox for its privacy, security, and a lack of nonsense—and this fails all three of those criteria.

[Whammie]

I don't want AI in anything I use. I have not seen a single use for AI where it hasn't immediately or eventually started screwing up and getting things wrong using more resources than getting it right would have doing it the current way.

[row24]

I dont want easier access to AI, it already comes up with searches. Please dont add this. Im tired of seeing AI pushed on me, especially when it is historically exploitative and incorrect

[JB-JT]

Please don't do this. I switched over to Firefox because Mozilla prioritizes privacy, it's why I've paid for additional services with Mozilla as well. Adding AI to Firefox undermines this. This will ruin Firefox's reputation, usability, and user count.

[zetaa]

I will say this as politely as possible: for the love of Christ, DO NOT. NOBODY WANTS IT, EVERYONE HATES IT, AND YOU WILL BE LAMBASTED FOR THE DECISION IF YOU GO THROUGH WITH IT.

[teacakes]

I don't find AI that helpful it's not as intelligent as the name implies. I would prefer Firefox not to include AI like this.

[Sequoia]

Please, please do not. We need a space where AI is not. Please, please. Firefox is so good, don't ruin it for us.

[jmicz3d]

Please do not add this feature.

[WoodwardIII]

36 to 414 is quite a ratio. At this point, the only way I see this working as a feature is to have it be opt-in.

[brhfl]

Truly hoping the Firefox team reconsiders this misguided attempt to hop on a trend. Those of us who care about Firefox as a keystone in browser diversity already tend to have lost a lot of trust in Mozilla over the years. Despite this, pushing AI into the browser - a piece of software that should be a lean, single-purpose tool - is kind of a staggering new low. I mean, we've expected it; Mozilla has been teasing this pivot for a while now, and we've all collectively said 'no, please just make a good browser.' But it's disheartening all the same. I've bailed on a lot of products this year for implementing AI. Even if it can be disabled, it's just a sign of a corporation that's utterly lost touch. I'm sure this will fall upon willfully-plugged ears, but please reverse course on this ridiculousness.

[patriot718]

I think this a great feature - it's been very helpful. Excited the browser is continuing to try to add useful new features for the everyday user, looking forward to additional options for local AI processing and what not as well.

[purringParadox]

Please don't add this. I would simply stop using firefox and find something else.

[theTisch21]

Please don’t. If you really want to, please keep it to an opt-in extension.

[aisteach]

please stop shoving AI down our throats. No one is actually asking for it. It is the opposite of useful and we're all tired of it. Mozilla is supposed to be our safe harbor. Please keep it so.

[manofmold]

I have no functional use for AI. AI does not solve any problems I might have. I have never once considered using AI to solve any of my problems. There is no reason to hop on the AI grifter train.

[Semirhage]

No thank you! There's enough garbage "AI" options on websites without integrating them straight into the browser. I don't need a learning algorithm telling me nonsense and diverting the teams focus and funds from features that are actually useful.

[JustAnyUser]

Loving it. Currently interfaced to HuggingChat in the sidebar. Big fan of this proposed feature, no stability issues or problems to report so far. Finding it very useful despite the token input limit of HuggingChat being on the short side. Service is fast, responsive, and very convenient. Glad to see Mozilla incorporating chatbot APIs into the browser, this is a great accessibility feature. Downloaded the Nightly build as soon as I heard about it and may never go back to the earlier build. Love the capability to add self hosted bots, that's huge for me, hope this feature in particular is kept, moving forward.   I for one am glad to see Mozilla proactively integrating assistive technologies into Firefox and hope to see these features in a mainline release soon. 

[Green23rd]

DO NOT AT ALL ADD AI LIKE THIS

At this point most people coming to use Firefox are doing so because they hate the AI everywhere else that nobody asked for, doesn’t work, and is destroying the environment, joining everybody else with terrible AI that offers quick but incredibly flawed, sourceless and citation less AI that doesn’t understand the difference between well researched peer reviewed sources, jokes, and complete lies, will do nothing but push people away from Firefox.

For both the sake of Firefox, Firefox users, and Mozi//a DO NOT AT ALL ADD AI LIKE THIS

[OctoberDaydream]

HELL NO!

[prokyon]

We don't want this! We don't want AI integration, we don't want AI features, we don't want anything to do with it! We don't want buttons that take us to AI sites or use AI tools.

Shoving AI into our faces constantly is like pushing us onto a runaway train at this point, and these tracks end on a cliff.

Firefox is supposed to be the no-BS browser! THAT MEANS NO AI.

[dreambigfirefox]

Not gonna go into too much detail, (editing this after the fact: lol I went into detail a bit) but like many have said, we don't want AI chatbots natively integrated into Firefox.

I think if there'd be a problem with it as an extension, make extensions more capable of the things you want to do with it. Especially if the AI stuff includes chatbots that aren't developed by Mozilla staff alone with no unethically scraped data. If I want ChatGPT or other chatbots, I'd much prefer an extension.

A set of tools that utilize some "artificial intelligence", things similar to the Google autofill or translate, but that aren't inherently generative in nature, those would be fine, but keep in mind the ethics and stray away from anything that is nearly entirely based off of stolen, harvested data (like many chatbots and image generators). If that is something you are pursuing still, I strongly suggest making it an extension of some kind, or have it be an extra download option that isn't at all natively shipped with Firefox, even if it's not a true "extension".

I think also, there are many features Firefox could focus on that aren't AI related that the people would want. I would love a way to group tabs on mobile devices, or have tab groups that are separate from the container tabs feature that work more like Chrome. That's one thing I haven't seen Firefox copy from Chrome, and something I would like, at least on mobile devices.

A way to hide the top bar on any site and go full screen would be nice too, since right now it only hides when you're scrolling a page, and only sometimes works.

[eghouck]

No, a thousand times no!  Make it an add on if you must.  Firefox is our safe space from AI.  Also AI is basically a bubble and it's getting closer to popping.

[BunBunVelvet]

Please don't or at least make it extremely forthright and easy to cope out of. With legit everything forcing me to try AI or to use AI even down to my OS of microsoft trying to force me to use copilot and stuff, I don't want Firefox to start doing the same thing. I just want the browser to be a browser like I want microsoftOS to be an OS and not an assistant. I'd rather not have to try and find another browser that has so far respected me and my time like firefox because this was forced.

[thegranddewru]

C’mon guys! Seriously? It’s not real, it doesn’t work, and it uses an unacceptable amount of energy/resources. Please no AI

[ashteranic]

Generally, I find the idea that Mozilla is cramming LLMs into Firefox to be abhorrent.

Generative AI and LLMs are not a direction the industry at large, or Firefox specifically, should be taking, for a variety of reasons:

* Accuracy and utility: LLMs are rapidly being discovered as *not* providing any value, and often providing incorrect results. A recent study by the Australian government found that LLMs are poor at summarizing content, one of the alleged key features of LLMs: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/09/australian-government-trial-finds-ai-is-much-worse-than-humans-at.... 

* LLM training and operations is having a substantially negative environmental impact, causing many tech companies to completely overshoot their climate goals https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.16863. Google’s emissions are up 48% in five years, while Microsoft’s are up 30% between 2020 and 2023.

* LLMs and various training-based AI in general frequently results in biased results, such as reinforcing racism. 

* LLMs are contributing to an increase in the spread of phishing and other types of attacks, and frequently has confidential information ingested into it by users who do so unknowingly.

* LLMs are largely built on the backs of underpaid labor of workers across the world, many of whom come away from the experience traumatized.

* LLMs are heavily dependent on completely flouting copyright law, and are frequently criticized for outright stealing content used for training.

It is my strongly held opinion that installing LLM-based "AI" into Firefox runs counter to the Mozilla Foundation's Manifesto. LLMs reinforce biases, and contributes to the dire climate emergency we're all living through right now. As a technology base, I believe it is antithetical to the Mozilla Foundation's stated goals, and if it isn't, the manifesto should be updated so that it becomes so.

[midgy]

This is such a great comment! I'm really glad to see some additional sources on this topic.

[voxmyriad]

AI in Firefox is absolutely unnecessary. The reason I have been sticking with Firefox for so long is because Mozilla has not moved forward on tech fads but has kept providing a really solid product in the face of "progress for the sake of progress." I would hate to see this tech fad be the reason Firefox starts to lose the market share it does have.

[sazinata]

please do not add AI to firefox

[Freyakitten]

Absolutely not. For AI to work, it needs to have access to what I have access to, and that means my personal information and my clients' personal information. I am not filling out a breach of privacy notification form every time I log in to a client's finances.