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!

[Kyra]

Reading through these comments, you'll notice a complete lack of real responses from employees. Mozilla does not care, this is ens***ification creeping into firefox. You know, good old late stage capitalism.

[Quinmael]

In the most polite way: **bleep**ING NO WAY, PLEASE DON'T.
Keep AI away from Firefox's code, please.

[ShenMuxing]

Wow, so many people don't like this. But this functions is important for a AI-age app. You can take a look at monica plugin on Google Chrome. Maybe it can be changed to an official add-on on Firefox store if many people consider performance problem.

[GnomiBee]

I really enjoy the current version of Firefox and would NOT want an AI feature added

[thexmeta]

unbelievable people that dont want AI in the browser in a such enormous growing AI century. Just dont use it if you are against it, thats all. Also you can turn the feature off or not even turn it on. Come on use your brains like turning on/off a feature like "check spelling". it is not even a privacy issue.

[Amai-vos]

IMO, AI is great, just insufficient in value to offset how bad their respective parent companies' reputations are about their handling of user data. So I must preface this post by saying that AI integration is, maybe, not the best choice for Firefox *as a product*, at least from my perspective as a one of its' users.

An approach that would be more aligned to the principles of the browser would be to just add an API endpoint for AI-related "merde" and accept payment from whoever wants to be the default choice of provider for that, like you folks did with search engines. This way, whichever company cares enough about this can just pay to be the default one and we- who would never even consider using their services in the first place- can just move on with our lives; Granted, of course, that this default wouldn't be "default on" (which, given the operating costs of AI, shouldn't even be on the table in the foreseeable future).

So I suggest phrasing and dealing with this less like "AI Integration" and more along the lines of "A new AI API, where you can plug in AI-related stuff".

This would have the benefit that one can simply plug in a private AI solution on that "AI slot". Although this is currently a very niche use case due to its' price, those solutions will eventually become commercially viable for a wider audience (As of right now, they are exorbitantly expensive, with around 80Gb+ of VRAM requirements just for the cheapest ones).

By following this suggestion and making something one would call "an AI API", not "an AI integration", not only would we stand to have a much more mature "AI API" if and when the core Firefox user-base would ever begin to consider really using it, but we would also decrease the public association of Mozilla with these info-grabby AI companies as a whole, which it shouldn't want to have many of in the first place, given its user-base (That is, assuming we are mostly made up by people concerned with privacy and online safety). AI is kind of a charged keyword right now, for better or worse. And it will likely continue being so for the whole decade to come.

Another thing is that AI is very expensive to run as of right now, with most of that cost being paid by the environment through the centralization of AI-related workloads. This is almost guaranteed not to be the case in the future. Once the absolutely superior customization, privacy and other advantages of privately run LLMs finally outweigh their upfront cost, only big companies will be left using AI "services". Since, let's be honest, those services are just intrinsically expensive to everyone involved, one way or another.

Wrapping up:

My vote goes on the yes basket. AI is currently a "merde", yes, but it may not be so forever. I think having an API for it already maturing even before AI has any value or use for most Firefox users is a W in my book.

You just need to remember to make a proper "AI API", not just a hook into the current commercially available services that provide it.

I believe AI is gonna get much better than it is now, at least in the short term. Even though AI *services* will just continue to decay in value until they fade into the history books. So, if you want, go for it. I'm cheering for you folks at Mozilla, as always.

P.S If you are concerned about the amount of "would"s and "could"s in this post, I guess that's just telling of the amount of optimism required to believe "AI integration" in Firefox would have a happy ending, whichever way we choose to call it 😛 But personally, I'm still on board with it and cheering for you folks. Good luck ahead, whatever you may choose.

- A newly authenticated member of the user-base, just for this post.

Tl;dr: YES

[shofarsogood]

Please don't do this. AI uses a ton of water and energy to work. It's not healthy for the environment. AI is unethical.

I really like using Firefox and I don't want it to go the way of Google Chrome.

[flightofthedvl]

I am not interested in a browser with ai. Having it in search results is bad enough and something that I have to work around. If AI was added to Firefox I would be upset and if it was not able to be turned off, I would find a new browser

[gabbethepro]

Cool idea. Could be done with some improvement as the only options are not very useful imo, but I see potential. Don't understand all hate against new technology, it is is a optional free feature. Perhaps the haters should go back to using bare html

[howl]

I cannot overemphasize how much no one wants AI services and AI assistants and suchlike on... anything. Not on browsers, not websites, not on apps, not anywhere. I'll be very disappointed if this goes through.

[celestialwound]

No AI in anything ever, TY. I hate it.

[blacklunar]

I am extremely against this. AI is prone to error, built off stolen material, and catastrophic for the environment. Please do not add AI to Firefox.

[MaxW391]

Please, no. 'AI' is not a useful feature - it merely generates things with no verification as to whether it is accurate. It also uses horrific amounts of energy and water at a time when climate change means these things need to be conserved.

[greenivy]

Please don't. I moved to Firefox because Google sucked, and now you're taking steps towards making Firefox more like Google.

[Swirly]

Booo!

[Onibull]

Every single thing I've used that has integrated ai has turned to absolute **bleep**, spredding misinformation, scams, and general bad results, please do not put this into firefox too.

It sucks that we can say no but someone else is rich and wants to steal from us and does it anyway.

It really **bleep**ing sucks that these dumbass machine learning machines are destroying the environment and water too and that all companies are going 'what if this gives us more money' and does it **bleep**ing anyway making it almost impossible to get away from.

[cutiexe]

Kudos on one point only: having an easy link to provide feedback. AI "features" are not useful and in fact are unwanted by the majority of Firefox users. Don't waste any more time, effort, or money on this feature.

[DysProg]

Could you just f*cking not? I thought Firefox was the browser that didn't do stupid trendy bull**bleep**. Why not add NFTs too if you're going to do this?

[Mumblebee7]

Take a good, long look at what people say about Chrome. Especially lately. 

That's what'll happen if you follow through with this. Yes, even with opt-out as default. 

In Earnest: DO. NOT.

[vermuepft]

no thank you, i don't want any ai chatbot or any similair ai hype thing, i wouldn't use it and it would make lessen my enjoyment of firefox

[arappathor]

As far as i can see, no one needs this. I just want a working browser, that is not chrome.

[Osnofa]

Trying to login to a chatbot doesn't work if I start with Proton VPN connected.

Only after disconnecting from the VPN would it allow me to log in.

Though, once I was logged in, it started working as a chatbot in my sidebar.

[Carolly]

I only just recently switched to Firefox because other companies won't stop integrating AI nonsense into their programs.

I swear to God if you continue with this I'm going to start using a command-line browser as the last option there is. Opposing the spread of the disease that is AI is a moral imperative, and one that Mozilla of all companies should understand and agree with.

[ndsheck]

Absolutely not. This is irresponsible and hypocritical.

[tudorandrei]

I would be nice, to have options for local providers (ollama and others), and make it by default opt-out

[Maianaise]

I would prefer Ai to not be implemented at all. Even if it is optional, even if it is opt in usage/ones choice to use, the effect of AI is proliferating and normalising it harms artists, writers, illustrators and creators and will alienate them from your browser. Especially considering how much AI has already harmed and replaced artists in their various forms, and depending on which AI services you include, they are often built on and fed by theft of materials they have no right to.
Another issue with AI is the rampant power and water usage that is required for a singular prompt or image to be generated, and even without all those other issues I will not support something which is draining resources which could and should be better used elsewhere. The environmental impact alone is unacceptable.
I love firefox for what it does but choosing this route will make me consider finding another browser (though that is hard in this day in age as most are... not great and firefox so far has been the best choice, but with this it will make me reconsider.)

[LilyTheLesbian]

No!

[Tayebr]

Hi! No! Please don't, we're all so tired of slowly having our online world manipulated by data thay can just straight up be false, powered by the energy consumption of an actual country, owned and controlled by corporations we can't trust.

I like and want to trust mozilla. This will irreperably damage my image of the mozilla brand. 

[Ldmorisco]

No. It is a massive environmentally damaging waste. I will not claim to care about the very *here and now* climate crisis and water crisis while willfully using AI products. I don't even care if they're "more useful." At the cost, I don't want them. At all. In anything.

Also I've used google products in the past year and they've become absolute wrecks. And yep, powered by AI. Don't destroy mozilla because everyone else is doing the cool new thing, too.

[evren-d]

No, no, no, not interested and strongly protest AI

[Shurtu-gal]

I tried to use it didn't like it much no option to just search it. What should I do when I don't want to summarize etc.

Also creates new chats everytime.

[majesticmini471]

As a UNIX re-developer, my team is completely against Artificial Intelligence. When does it ever learn and not crash users, programs, systems, and/or local devices?

[RattyTatTat]

This will make me switch to librewolf.

[Saturniidae]

Et Tu, Firefox?

I thought you were better than trying to shoehorn AI (aka The Greenhouse Gas Generator That Also Says Dumb Stuff You Could Have Easily Googled) into our browsers.

[NotGagarin]

Stop chasing hype. AI is a copyright nightmare and terrible for the environment. I want no part of it in my browser. Please remove this now.

People, did you know that one 100 word email generated by ChatGPT uses 1 bottle of water or enough electricity to power the lights in a house for an hour [1]? We're being asked to buy into AI chatbots that nobody needs and nearly nobody wants, and to build them we're measurably worsening the climate crisis. This has to stop.

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/09/18/energy-ai-use-electricity-water-data-centers/ (non paywall version: https://archive.is/iuQk0)

[evrenio]

A local AI with some limited task focused intelligence may upgrade Firefox to became a real user-agent that is actually favors the benefit of the users. Please give us that either backed by Ollama so people can choose the model they prefer or a tiny fine tuned model embedded into Firefox. But first, please let us define our own prompts, right now it's way too limited.

[eldritchonline]

No, we don't need or want AI as part of our user experience.

[Bobbieve]

Please no. Firefox is the only safely usable webbrowser left, please don't add AI to ruin that.

[Doaxan]

Cool feature, I wish it was always in the browser and worked well. But I really wish the list of providers was bigger and not limited by anything. It would also be possible to use local models. 👍

[miclgael1]

Don't want it. Didn't ask for it. I use Firefox to get away from things like this.