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!

[LadyRiptide]

absolutely bloody NOT nononononono NO get that useless theiving misinformation machine out of here!!!

[Bluesky]

What's next NFTs? That would be the step if Firefox is really committed to investing in the garbage water wasting tech that is "AI"(let's all be real it's not actually intelligent).

[azurebolt]

For the love of high heaven, do NOT do this.

[rexxie]

even putting aside privacy concerns, ai is notoriously unreliable and unstable. too, too often it spouts out provably false information. wasn't firefox just trying to campaign to save a system that actively fights misinformation spreading?

building it into a browser is a recipe for disaster. not to mention the gpu costs of just using ai would make the browser nigh on unusable for some people. and that is not even getting into the hacking risks - ai is even more susceptible to hacking than most software because a hacker doesn't even have to access the network it's running on. if you manage to even detect a breach - which also a huge risk.

[nader]

Built-in AI tools are dead weight really. People can download them as extensions if they want. I strongly advise against this.

[Banchou]

I'm very much against "AI services" as they feel like a bubble technology that is going to pop any day now. It's the new NFT, which have all vanished from public consciousness despite people swearing they'd become the new normal for things like ticket sales or art markets. The amount of resources that are used to run things like AI services for the middling actual services returned is frustrating. Nothing is helped by adding bloat like this that just eats energy costs.

[A_Drake]

Please don’t. I understand that AI is The Big Thing right now, but even if it was legitimately useful, it still wouldn’t be worth the environmental impact.

[tecso]

The fact that these experiments being done with general AI that actively breeches privacy in tandem with their unhelpful features and unethical impact, has compelled me to look to other browsers for what Firefox had promised: a private internet browsing experience. I've disabled future Firefox updates as I plan to move out of this browser entirely.

[c0ltanheart]

NO THANK YOU

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, EMPHATICALLY NO

[d_iva]

No

[Bardolomew]

Firefox and Mozilla are known to have higher ethical and quality standards than most other browsers. It would be a shame to lose that reputation, and the respect of your userbase, and for what?
To add an AI feature to mimick every other browser? you aren't actually competitive with them anyway, based on statistics -  but now at least you have a loyal user base that stick with you.

And if you avoid implementing AI - when the bubble bursts on nainstream users, they'll have Firefox to go to!

Please stay the browser we all love, and don't give in to corpo idiots who don't know anything about actual technology but just chase buzzwords all the time.

It isn't just about quality - it's also basic competitive business thinking - what's your product's nieche and what sets you apart? Do THAT! Currently your nieche is savvy users who want more control and privacy in their experience of the internet. If you lose us - and you will, if you do this - you won't have a userbase left. That's just bad business, guys.

Do what you do well with pride, spend your resources on informing the casual users of how good the alternative is, and just make a good product.

Smooches, and plz don't be evil

[kuromidumpling]

NO AI!! AI is unnecessary and unwanted

[Pixaurora]

I believe AI is most certainly not needed in a web browser. If I want to talk to AI, I will use the browser to open one of the 50 other ones I can talk to online, you don't need to build this into the browser.

[barathron]

Please don't.

I've been a user of Mozilla browsers since Netscape. I'm really disappointed in this direction for Firefox.

I don't want AI assistants anywhere near the codebase - it's unforgivable. I respect that you tried to get past the buzzword to use AI for translations, but I'd prefer that that be an extension so people can choose to introduce it, and I'd prefer that this AI service nonsense be dropped and forgotten.

Mozilla is critical to the Internet, which is critical to our collective future. Don't throw it away with this misguided effort.

[Dande]

Hi, we dont want this.

If i wanted ai bloat, i would use opera.

[ToastedIcarus]

Please do not do this.

[ebardie]

Et tu Brutus?

i.e, JFC, just no!

[Forest]

I've been using and endorsing Firefox for many years, especially recently with how google has been building a chrome(-ium) monopoly, but integrating Gen AI might be the thing that makes me switch to another browser. Gen AI is fundamentally unsustainable, and frankly makes you look like tools chasing after a craze.

Many others have said it, but the environmental cost is simply too high. This article covers it well, and is only from earlier this year. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00478-x

Gen AI is also just straight up inaccurate to dangerous, as people posting screenshots of google's AI answers can demonstrate (though it's hardly isolated to theirs). https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/05/googles-ai-overview-can-give-false-misleading...

Gen AI is unreliable and much too damaging to the environment. Please reconsider integrating it into Firefox.

[moeruze]

Please don't add AI into Firefox. Leave it completely out of the browser and offer an official extension instead, if you must implement AI features, so that it's 100% opt-in and gives the rest of us the same level of security that we've come to expect from Firefox.

If Firefox goes ahead with keeping AI and introduces it into the stable build updates, I will be leaving and using other browsers that don't use AI.

May if in the future AI doesn't need to illegally and non-consensually steal people's data, work, and personal information, isn't full of misinformation and completely made up facts from made up sources, and doesn't need to add to our already disastrous climate change in order to work, I will consider it. As of right now, using AI is like cutting down a whole forest because you wanted a space to set up one tent.

PLEASE go the extension route. A huge part of privacy and security and the trust of your user base depends on not following controversial tech trends, especially at a time where we're seeing a lot of serious issues come out of the forced usage of AI.

Thank you for considering the feedback from your users.

[CE312]

Please don't. I've already disabled AI on Google because it was interfering with search results. I don't need it here.

[Mossghost]

AI is built on plagiarism and mostly expels misinformation. Knowing Firefox is working with AI makes me lose a lot of faith in where this browser is going. If the AI feature stays, I will be seeking an alternate browser to use.

[Nysha]

The main request I'll have is make sure such a feature is always disabled by default. A lot of people have privacy concerns related to allowing an AI to see what they're looking at.

[HowliteBadger]

I switched to firefox because it promises to be less invasive than other browsers like chrome. I have no interest in letting EVEN MORE AI into my life. While some AI has a place in the future, it shouldn't be involved with our personal data. Firefox is (or should be) better than this.

[ayti]

Hello,

I appreciate that this addition is optional and that a team of people worked very hard to develop and release this update! As someone who has been using Firefox for years and appreciates what it provides, I would like to provide some feedback.

I think AI is something that various industries, especially tech, are very interested in and it definitely has its uses. Like in supporting accessibility and medical research, but I have never found a use for AI for my personal everyday needs that I couldn't replicate in an equal or sometimes better way through, for example, machine learning. I fear this recent obsession with integrating AI into everyday life is an attempt to provide solutions to problems that simply do not exist and it upsets me to see Firefox falling in line with this trend.

This is a service I know I, and many many other people, will simply not want to use. I don’t want for you to expend resources on an update that is ultimately unnecessary and against what the user base want from Firefox. 

Thank you for reading this, I hope my feedback was useful to you!

[anon5]

Please do not add an AI similar to Google's Gemini or Window's Copilot to Firefox. AI such as those and many others go directly against Mozilla's own Manifesto as it is "used to magnify divisiveness, incite violence, promote hatred, and intentionally manipulate fact and reality." AI also destroys a "shared sense of humanity" by scraping artwork, written pieces, and many other creations from their creators without permission or credit. AI has a horrible environmental impact by contributing to water waste for its training. There are numerous other impacts to AI, all negative.

As others have mentioned, I deliberately chose Firefox as my browser because I valued my privacy and did not want my data and internet usage to be sold and used without my consent. This direction to AI by Mozilla is infuriating and I will be considering other browsers.

[SpaceDragonVoid]

Absolutely not. Integrating AI like this is granting it a legitimacy it doesn't deserve due to the morally dubious and possibly illegal gathering of material and data needed to run it along with the larger erosion of trust in cited and credible sources.

[lesbrarians]

You're kidding me, right? I like Firefox explicitly because it's safe, private, and doesn't engage with shady, garbage trends like AI. You said you're not making this a core functionality, but you'll have to pardon me for not trusting a company that's willing to implement a feature like this. This actively contributes to the en**bleep**tification of the internet, and I'm beyond disappointed in Firefox. Time to go browser shopping. Again.

[wiserodin032402]

Absolutely not.

[Blastinburn]

I dropped OperaGX the moment they updated my browser with AI features, I will immediately do the same if Firefox adds AI.

[Comarama]

No thank you, please. Do not do this. 

[tofire]

Just feckin dont man. Who asked for this?

[Sheikor]

STOP with the AI garbage please. We don't want chatbots, random ugly pictures or searches that yield incorrect and sometimes even dangerous results. ENOUGH WITH AI. PLEASE.

[Chimervera]

Seriously? I switched to Firefox to get AWAY from stuff like this. FFS I'm going to have to switch to a new browser twice in one year.

[soraka]

there are so many issues with generative ai. this goes against what firefox should be to begin with. even testing this feature is a slap in the face to your customers, artists, writers, people who care about the fate of the planet, etc. please stop this immediately. if it continues, i'll be sure to find another browser that doesn't promote unethical technology. i'm definitely not recommending this browser to anyone until this stops, either. shame on whoever made these calls. you are out of touch.

[crimsonfirecat]

PLEASE don't. Please please please don't. You're all we have left.

[SiobhanNotShane]

Why would anyone using your browser want this? The people who I know are currently moving to Firefox are doing so to avoid the stupid AI slop that are in other browsers. Don't do this.

[DNDMaruader98]

Please no

[ESaturn]

LLM AI is nothing but automated theft, plagiarism, fraud, and erasure of the people it steals from. we demand you remove all AI functions from firefox, delete all LLMs you have, and join the fight for global criminalization of all LLMs.

[avaristarling]

Listen, please don't do this. That every option out there has some unethical connotations doesn't absolve us of the responsibility to try to mitigate that lack of ethics. AI (though it really isn't even that) is wildly unpopular, especially amongst the demographics that prefer Firefox over Google. It is wildly energy inefficient and has horrible effects on the environment. The way generative AI of any kind works is intrinsically tied to data and intellectual property theft. AI isn't artificially intelligent, it isn't generating unique "thoughts," it is simply scraping, conglomerating, and stealing from other media on the internet.

Additionally, when asked to generate thoughts or give ideas, it is frequently, incoherently, and egregiously wrong! It can't "interpret" the data it steals, it's just pouring word soup into a query. There is PLENTY of evidence out there to illustrate this.

Please, I know this is only an experiment, but it is an experiment based on something incredibly unpopular, unethical, and demonstrably unhelpful. I love Firefox. Do not do this.

[eeteegee]

I used Firefox to avoid this kind of nonsense. I knew it's not perfect, but I thought it was better. With this move, you've jumped the shark and lost any remaining trust I had in Mozilla.