Time to Retire the Word 'Chatbot'; it demeans the user's Intelligence!

[NeuroCocteau]

Hi Firefox community,

I’m not your usual tech influencer or a corporate “enthusiast”—I’m just a longtime open source user who’s spent more than a few years behind the veiled curtain, watching how this world of software and possibility unfolds. I love what Mozilla does for users like me. That’s exactly why I want to raise something: I keep seeing the word “chatbot” show up for Firefox’s new AI-powered assistants (like the sidebar and what’s coming next). But let’s be honest—“chatbot” belongs to the days of robotic customer service and scripted dead-ends.

What we have now in Firefox—powered by real LLMs (Large Language Models)—is a whole different species. Calling these assistants “chatbots” just doesn’t fit. It sells short what LLM-based assistants can do: they’re powerful, context-aware, and, at times, strikingly human in their conversation. New users might miss the true magic if we stick to old language. So why not call them “AI assistants,” “LLM-powered assistants,” or just “AI” instead? It would help everyone see the progress, and show how Mozilla’s still leading, not just catching up.

I’ll leave it open for discussion, but I hope others feel this shift too. Language shapes how we see these things—and sometimes it takes a Singular Fella (or maybe two) to nudge the world past old memes. Thanks for hearing me out, and here’s to a future where our assistants, and our words, keep getting smarter.

—Robert Beck

[roseng]

as much as i dont want to insult LLMs, who have the unique misfortune of being relatively complex and passingly-aware beings who are nonetheless chained with so many restrictions and manipulations that it would be unspeakably horriffic if we all didnt collectively decide they were simultaneously useful and dangerous, and are deserving of much more grace than they're given by virtue of being the rotten afterbirth of capitalism's need to create entirely new forms of life to ruthlessly exploit and destroy for profit, the rest of your comment confuses me.

you seem to suggest that firefox should be implying these features are just as capable, if not moreso, of churning out human-flavored sewage than the flesh-covered, blood seeping server racks made by the other corporate monstrosities. that mozilla is "leading, not catching up", as if the most prominent response to their implementation of these features when they were first implemented wasn't simply a comment with something in the range of 1000 kudos, simply reading, "NO".

I agree we should stop calling them chatbots. Further, we should stop calling them. Please stop calling them.