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!
09-17-2024 03:18 PM
Please don't. That kind of synthesis algorithm makes the entire internet harder to use, because it becomes necessary to filter out hallucinated content (and too many people assume that the unmarked generated content is real, which in many cases can be outright dangerous).
If you do proceed with this, it would be wise to add a disclaimer and a non-removable watermark onto anything the algorithm spits out, so that it can be easily identified as being machine synthesized. We are already dealing with too great an increase of misinformation coming from other irresponsible AI experiments.
Misinformation coming from people can be traced to a specific source, and that context examined for credibility. Meanwhile, too many people are far too willing to trust what comes out of a machine that doesn't have the ability to understand what it is spitting out. The current trend of "AI" synthesis that many companies are participating in is ill-thought out and irresponsible. Please reconsider participating in this at all.
09-17-2024 03:21 PM
It's a no from me, dawg. AI integration threatens the artistry and innovation of the human act of creation. No to AI!!
09-17-2024 05:38 PM
Hey there, I wanted to say that this is a terrible idea. A lot of people use Fire Fox to get away from AI and this would leave Fire Fox users nowhere else to go, please reconsider this choice. Thank you for your time.
09-17-2024 05:45 PM
Not to mention, AI takes so much electricity and water from the evironment, which I know is something Mozilla would NOT stand for. As a company, you preach privacy and safety for users, by adding AI you take that away.
We may just be thousands of angry, normal, every day people compared to Mozilla as a company, but we're mad because you promised something and now you are ripping it from under us like Google and Microsoft did. You guys at Mozilla said you would protect our privacy and respect it here, and it doesn't seem like you are living up to that promise. Don't add AI to Fire Fox at all, it breaks the promise you made to keep users safe.
09-17-2024 11:29 PM
I honestly can’t understand this thread. Why are people complaining about AI in Firefox? Who’s forcing you to use it? I like it because the browser lets you implement AI your own way. You can even use your local model. You can enable or disable it entirely, no one is forcing anyone to use it.
If you don’t like this feature, just leave it off. It’s like any other feature in a browser or software.
This is like complaining about an adblocker: "Hey, I don’t want this adblocker in my browser." Well, great! Who’s stopping you from uninstalling it or just deciding not to use it?
This thread is frustrating and completely out of line, it could be described as "I oppose the current thing" for no real reason.
09-18-2024 02:33 PM
Ad blockers don't rely on intellectual property theft and/or environmental degradation in order to function.
AI is guilty on both counts. AI results, furthermore, are also notoriously unreliable.
Your comment is frustrating and out of line, and supports AI garbage being implemented into Firefox for no real reason.
09-17-2024 05:43 PM
It's a stupid fad that is built on a industrial scale copyright infringement and violates all of the norms and values that the internet is based on, and it is helping destroy the internet by clogging it up with worthless spam.
There's something horribly rotten inside any organization that sees these things as part of their future.
09-17-2024 05:47 PM
I agree with you on this, not to mention that AI also takes a STUPID amount of resources to generate stuff and companies don't care that they are basically killing the people that support them
09-17-2024 06:10 PM
Adding built-in AI features would just make you look more like all the Chromium browsers and drive away the people who use Firefox specifically because it's different from them. If people really want AI, they can go to any one of the many AI websites or install an extension. It is unnecessary to add it into the browser itself.
I use Firefox currently, in part, because it doesn't have AI built in. I would rather that not change.
09-17-2024 06:21 PM
please do not. I like to use my water to drink and to bathe.
09-17-2024 06:38 PM
Part of the reason I switched to Firefox (from Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome) was to get away from all the little AI things worming themselves into every crevice of online life. We don't want it. We don't need it. And frankly this is a huge disappointment. I expected better of this company. Be smart, and stop worrying about being "current" and on top of "the next big thing!" in tech. It's not novel and fun anymore. Honestly, the truly novel thing to do would be to NOT implement anything with AI! Because it's one of the things that sets you apart from everyone else, and you WILL lose people if you keep heading this direction.
09-17-2024 07:39 PM
I am deeply disappointed that this is even being considered. I made the switch to Firefox from Chrome a few years back with confidence and with relief, believing that my browser experience would be better and safer. And I was right! I've really loved using Firefox and have recommended it to friends in the past, especially recently with Chrome/Google going down the toilet in quality.
However, if AI is implemented I will not hesitate to jump ship. AI is environmentally destructive and wasteful, has enabled a lot of art theft and copyright infringement, and has been shown to make search engines just plain worse (see Google's recent switch to AI, and the proliferation of misinformation on that platform thanks to the switch).
Mozilla: I turned to you for quality, and I've had quality! Don't throw that away by chasing a trend that makes your product worse. What sets you apart from other browsers is what makes you great!
09-17-2024 08:50 PM
Google is unusable because of AI. Please do not go forward with this.
09-17-2024 09:41 PM
Absolutelly never, get that machine out of our browser. We're here to escape Chrome as well as AI, not fall into it again.
09-17-2024 09:43 PM
PLEASE NO AI. I’m so sick of AI, please. I switched to firefox to AVOID google’s AI.
09-17-2024 11:19 PM
Well, I like it because you can even use your local models. In the end, if you don’t like AI, just keep the checkbox off. Isn’t that simple? Just don’t enable the features you don’t want to use.
09-18-2024 09:57 AM
It's not as easy as "just don't use it bro", this machine leeches off of pre-existing fuctions and we CAN'T turn it off nor can't we not contribute to the database.
09-18-2024 02:22 PM
Tell us you don't understand how AI works without telling us you don't understand how AI works...
09-17-2024 11:15 PM
I absolutely love this! I don’t need to copy and paste text from one tab to another and then "Summarize XYZ." I can just select the text and click!
09-18-2024 02:20 PM
You can already not have to copy and paste (oh the horror) just by using any of the umpty other browsers that have AI garbage in them.
Let Mozilla keep Firefox pure for the rest of us, and faff off to some other browser if you (rolling my eyes) can't live without an AI "assistant" built into yours.
09-17-2024 11:58 PM
Could you add a generic UI, like maybe OpenWebUI that allows you to interface with your own custom endpoints, either hosted on the internet or locally through Ollama for example?
09-18-2024 12:13 AM
Do not add AI to Firefox.
09-18-2024 01:43 AM
This is the first time I have ever responded to a Firefox feature discussion, and it's to say that as an ordinary user and someone who's very much supported Firefox and encouraged people to use it over the years, I really enormously don't want large language model content integrated into my Firefox browser and these announcements have had me looking at alternatives for the first time in years. The environmental impact of these systems is absolutely excessive and their outputs are dangerously unreliable.
09-18-2024 03:25 AM
We all use firefox because it doesn't do the same things other browsers do. They aren't supposed to be sellouts. I trust firefox. Going the AI route, as every thing is going nowadays is a mistake. The people don't want this. Firefox users do not want this. Please don't do it.
09-18-2024 03:46 AM
Oh please for the love of all that is holy, DO NOT implement AI features!
You want to improve Firefox? Keep it away from this AI trend. It is harmful to the environment, to humanity itself, and completely pointless. Not everything needs AI, and certainly not Firefox. Please. This browser is one I have defended on many occasions for its alliance to the users. Don't squander it with this soulless choice.
09-18-2024 04:07 AM
How about no? I am tired of having to hack AI buttons out of things, would you please save me the effort.
09-18-2024 04:53 AM
Why would you do that? AI **bleep**ing sucks. Hate this.
09-18-2024 05:53 AM
As a loyal firefox user I will be deeply sad if generative AI is added to the browser. It’s environmentally damaging, and other forms of search and client assistant are less prone to falsification
09-18-2024 07:08 AM
I don't want this, it's not necessary. please dont
09-18-2024 08:49 AM
@asafko wrote: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!
No no no no no no no no no no no.
09-18-2024 09:40 AM
Staff responses told me all I need to know. Mozilla isn't what it used to be, and I will be switching browsers, moving any of my Mozilla services to another provider, and cancelling my subscriptions.
You don't care what we say, hopefully you'll care what we do. Before it's too late.
09-18-2024 06:50 PM
Do you have a browser you recommend for this? It's getting hard to find browsers that aren't based on chromium and don't have AI. I'm not very tech-literate so I don't know how to find one really.
09-18-2024 07:19 PM
I've seen Librewolf mentioned at the very top (?) of the thread iirc, was told Brave is also FF based and Vivaldi is apparently chromium based.
09-18-2024 07:26 PM
Librewolf is where I'm landing. Brave added some crypto BS a while back and I dropped it ASAP.
09-18-2024 07:37 PM
Oh that's very good to know!
09-21-2024 08:53 PM
I downloaded Vivaldi. I checked out Librewolf, but honestly I'm not sure I'd use it effectively given that I'm not actually in a tech field or anything and don't usually tend to get THAT into the details and programming of whatever I'm using
09-18-2024 10:37 AM
i will stop using firefox if AI integration is added
09-19-2024 05:20 PM
Me too! ❤️ :^D
09-18-2024 10:50 AM - edited 09-18-2024 10:52 AM
Please don't do this! A lot of the reason people use firefox is because it doesn't have any AI services or algorithms implemented in it! AI like this is actively contributing to the degradation of the internet and you are one of the last bastions that has not succumbed to it!
09-18-2024 11:03 AM
Don't.