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!

[ppm1337]

I disagree. As a user, I want to have a consistent UX. In my mental model of using Firefox I want to be able to access all features that I consider useful via a keyboard shortcut. The moment I need to regress from my default behaviour of keyboard navigation, a feature becomes less appealing.

Also, most other sidebars are accessible via keyboard (Ctrl + H for history, Ctrl + B for bookmarks, ...) why suddenly have a sidebar that's deviating from this scheme?

[jtha]

I agree with the others, and frankly I would not use this if it was not a shortcut key away. Even less inclined to use this if I have high resolution / widescreens, this just adds friction. Ideally in general users could set the shortcut keys themselves if they want to, and assign to which keys. I bet you most of the shortcut keys aren't used anyway, so instead of having them all pre-assigned and firefox deciding which gets shortcuts which don't, leave it to the users to decide, if they want to.

[benlk]

Making keyboard shortcuts configurable to the user would solve a lot of concerns here: people can assign what works for them, and if they don't want to unintentionally invoke the AI tool, they can unassign the shortcut. See https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/customizable-hotkeys/idi-p/4979

[Henrymamar]

The AI in the sidebar is a fantastic feature for quick access to information, but adding a keyboard shortcut would make it even more convenient. A shortcut would allow users to open the sidebar instantly, enhancing productivity and streamlining workflow. Hopefully, this functionality can be added soon for an even smoother user experience!

[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.

[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.

[Mardak]

What aspect of privacy are you concerned about? Mozilla isn't collecting your prompts or selection to train a model.

[JHeuser]

All LLMs either rely on privacy violations, plagiarism, or both.

I notice you ask a lot of people to give recommendations for privacy preserving LLMs. I want you to name one that is privacy preserving, doesn't plagiarize (meaning it has a public list of all training data, and it's all used with permission), and doesn't use tremendous amounts of energy. If one exists, it should be the only one firefox allows, as that's the only moral and ethical way to go about this.

[PatchMixolydic]

Out of curiosity, would you able to swear, under penalty of perjury, that none of the LLMs exposed through this feature were trained on https://patchmixolydic.com?

[tribbleglorp]

Are there any even left? Obviously Chrome and Edge are out, Opera seems to have it in spades if the youtube sponcon is anything to go by, and let's not talk about Brave. My beloved Fox was the last one standing as far as I can tell. 😞

[draconicrose]

Vivaldi.

[andwhyisit]

Librewolf might be worth looking at.

[ffffff]

If Mozilla commits to going ahead with this feature unchanged despite significant localized backlash in this tiny discussion thread, you'd better start planning and preparing both the technical and the average user targeted PR for the release wayyy ahead.

Privacy-Preserving Attribution is arguably good, yet tech media still made a circus out of it, with countless users denouncing "Mozilla's Evil Fall to Advertising Revenue", completely missing the point of the feature and rarely taking the time to read a single paragraph on what it actually does. It's unfortunate, but some things really didn't go well with PPA's release.

This feature is arguably bad. Straight-up, no arguing, simply bad for many people. I don't know how one could spin this well—maybe there isn't even a good strategy, just a least bad one—but Mozilla must lay the groundwork, somehow. Right now, I feel like I can see the writing on the wall, except instead of writing it's a stain and the wall is actually Mozilla's reputation.

Again, I hope you folks figure something out, and it all goes well, because I'm not terribly excited about going into another space with numerous angry users who may or may not have read past the title of an article, to try and add nuance to the conversation and explain what Mozilla is actually doing and why. I know nobody asked me to do this, but I feel like I have to, sometimes, because it really ought to be Mozilla's job, yet the ball keeps getting dropped.

Maybe the majority of users don't care, so it seems advantageous frustrating a couple thousand to please a million, or something. I don't know if I agree with that choice, but it's your prerogative, I suppose.

[Mardak]

We had multiple blog posts as part of landing the initial exploration of the feature:

• A Values-First Approach to AI and Product
• Choose how you want to navigate the web with Firefox

This only landed in Nightly 129 less than a month ago, and we can continue to default the feature off as we make improvements. Do you have suggestions of what needs to be added to the feature before the release or the messaging?

[mega]

I suggest deleting the feature and apologizing publicly.

[Kwonunn]

Seconded.

[MageBunkshelf]

I agree on the strongest possible terms

[MageBunkshelf]

Not only do I remember that first blog post, I also remember the overwhelmingly negative response to it. People were saying this was a bad idea way back in June. Do Mozilla not read feedback? Please read the room.

[spctrthf]

Deleting the feature entirely and apologizing for disrespecting your userbase, as you can clearly see by the majority of the responses here that you are ignoring or responding to disingenuously.

[ffffff]

Related: Vivaldi's stance on the current AI/LLM trend

If Vivaldi didn't use Google's Blink engine, this discussion thread is the kind of reason I'd consider leaving Firefox for. It's very disappointing to see Mozilla of all entities embracing AI like this.

The Mozilla Manifesto says "commercial involvement in the development of the internet is critical." Seems it's entirely possible to have commercial involvement without adopting extremely controversial and highly criticized market trends.

Maybe I'll be proven wrong and this will be good for the internet and Firefox users, but I'm not optimistic.

In unrelated news, I keep trying to unsubscribe from this discussion because it only serves to make me sad, yet I still receive e-mails notifications. I want out. Anyone know what I might be doing wrong?

[wutongtaiwan]

Don't be too afraid of AI, after all, Firefox doesn't force AI on, and Mozilla doesn't enable AI by default, so you don't have to worry about AI infringing on your privacy

[mega]

They could have just made it an extension then. As a Lab it is far more likely to be included as a feature in the future which is something I didn't ask for and do not want, even if it is opt-in by default.

[qu1j0t3]

 just humouring the product infringes not only the privacy of every web user, but their copyrights as well. and that's before we get into the environmental and ethical problems (generative 'ai' marketing is a transparent financial fraud by VCs and CEOs).

so yes, we should oppose all usage of, and cooperation with LLM and generative 'ai' scams.

[Mardak]

The current Firefox feature supports open models from providers like Hugging Face and allows us to guide users to fully local inference and truly open-source models like OLMo when those functionalities are ready. Mozilla is also improving AI such as democratizing access with llamafile, supporting open-source models that have open training data with better privacy for everyone, and generally engaging with the broader community including lawmakers to make AI good for the internet.

Being more integrated with AI such as this Firefox feature allows us to make a difference for users and non-users of chatbots by magnifying the efforts we have across Mozilla.

[mega]

AI doesn't make the Internet better. People do.

[KDPWildwood]

not sure about this discussion specifically but since I only signed up for this forum to enter _this thread_ to say I don't want AI, i just went into my settings and turned off every notification and email option I could find

[marcobassetto]

I can't use it as it currently breaks Sideberry

[WoefKat]

Same here 😞 That's a bummer. It would be nice if we could have sideberry on the left and the AI on the right.

Or just to have native horizontal tabs again 😉

[Mardak]

What do you mean by native horizontal tabs? Turning on AI Chatbot with or without Sideberry still has the normal tabs at the top for me.

[WoefKat]

Oh yes I meant vertical tabs 😞

I thought of them as horizontal because it's still a horizontal bar 🙂

[Mardak]

How is Sideberry broken? Or more that you need to keep switching between AI Chatbot and Sideberry sidebar panels? It seems like Sideberry at least has a keyboard shortcut to switch back to it.

[marcobassetto]

I need to keep switching between the AI Chatbot and Sideberry sidebar. If there's a way to open/close the AI Chatbot with a button it would be nice

[Mardak]

When you have a sidebar open whether it's Sideberry or AI Chatbot, there should be a dropdown towards the top to switch which sidebar is open as well as a close X button. You can also customize the toolbar to add a "Show sidebars" button to toggle your last sidebar open and close.

Alternatively, is the chatbot feature still useful for you if you change `browser.ml.chat.sidebar` so that the chatbot opens in a regular tab instead of sidebar? This would be useful for starting chats from the selected text and saved prompts, but not as useful for side-by-side comparisons. You can still also open the chatbot in the sidebar if you want a fresh chat without prompt.

[Mte90]

The announcement is not clear that is not started yet.

Also it isn't clear if it will require a personal token for this services and what settings are available.