Say NO to AI in the #Firefox browser

People hate the term AI and so Mozilla were always going to struggle with providing modern functionality, as let's face it, the Internet is embracing AI whether we like it or not
There's AI in many forms in Firefox such as how it predicts the page you want to revisit from the address bar and translates content locally on device. If these AI capabilities were moved to extensions, it would probably significantly reduce the benefit users get from Firefox and likely prevent other useful features such as privacy preserving AI alternatives.
This is poignant. AI as we know it is basically what we were calling machine learning a couple years ago. The same people that are very vocally complaining about the advent of a smarter browser, are the same people that bemoan Mozilla for depending on Google for financing. Somehow they want a browser that only the most devout privacy evangelists would use and they want a browser that is self-sustained through diverse deals, none of which they're able to see or feel.
I feel like there's a lot of disingenuous Firefox supporters who want a utopia browser and refuse to allow Mozilla to do anything to evolve the browser. These same people talk up all the Firefox forks and that change a few defaults and yet bemoan everything Mozilla does that makes those forks possible. It's boring.
I want a browser with on device translations.
I want a browser with smart page suggestions.
I want a browser that's able to summarise articles.
I want a browser that can fact-check pages.
- Don't forget, they want all of that in a nice, neat, FOSS package, which they will not contribute one dollar or a single line of code to.
- @sabreW4K3 why don't you fork Firefox to do all those unnecessary for everyone else things? Firefox needs to stay unbloated, unAI'd, and most importantly sincere to it's original intents.
  "I want a browser that can fact-check pages" 🤣 AI cannot fact check itself let alone anything else. Why don't you do your own fact checking?
  My £0.02
  
  Firefox needs to stay unbloated, unAI’d, and most importantly sincere to it’s original intents.
  [citation needed]
  
  cannot fact check itself let alone anything else. Why don't you do your own fact checking?
  Why don't I render my own CSS? Firefox has the ability to pull alternative sources in the background and compare against my current page. What is wrong with that?
- the Internet is embracing AI whether we like it or not
  And if not, the feature gets removed again in a year or so. So far it doesn't really seem like it's in your face or anything, so 🤷
  
  Plus you can just turn it off or not use it. This is just a convenience of access to existing things, nothing newly built or added or so. All the loud whiners in that connect thread just once again show to Mozilla that they are better off never asking for feedback, since people are utterly unable to provide any in a way that is well-adjusted or more adult than a 6y old. >.>
  
  But the problem is, people think that there's one single development team working on Firefox and if they're working on AI, they're not improving or working on anything else.
- I want a browser that can fact-check web pages
  I want a browser that can keep track of my cryptocurrency investments
  I want a browser that can monitor the market for Beanie Babies
  I want a browser with a built-in Pokemon Go panel
  I want a browser that can detect when I'm about to post cringe
  I want a browser with tail fins and shag carpeting
  Come on Mozilla, make it happen! As an added bonus, all that added UI cruft will probably mean new places to show advertising at the users.

Why would I say no to them providing a sidebar option for that?
Tons of people love to engage with LLMs, would be utterly assinine of Mozilla to not do something this benign to make it easier to use stuff?
- They can make it into an extension then.
  Like Container tabs, which, of all things, should be baked into the browser.
  
  They can, but why? If I can be enabled/disabled, what's the harm? If I thought Firefox is nefarious it wouldn't use it at all, not just avoid their extensions. It's not like that's the only way they could have to spy of it was the goal.
  This will be aimed for the average Joe that thinks it's "neat" edge has it and doesn't know about extensions.
  Mullvad and Librewolf might have it disabled, it's an easy switch.
  
  Container tabs are baked into the browser? 🤷
  But one of the devs replied to the expansion thing in the feedback, and says it would not work well as an expansion. I dunno, can't judge that, never worked on the FF codebase before.
- Opportunity cost
  
  Well they're adding more options for people, that's exactly what people always want them to spend their time on. More options and user choices, default off, seems they're doing it exactly what people always want them to do? 🤷

Why would I say no? If it can be turned off I don't care. Mozilla might get some money from the idiotic AI frenzy which will help keep them going.
Of course if its implemented badly to affect privacy and security then no. But forks of Firefox like Fennac and Librewolf will strip this stuff out. I'm no fan of this AI nonsense but I haven't seen anything yet to suggest this is anything more than a gimmick.
- In fact you have to explicitly turn it on, as someone else corrected me already. It's an optional feature for people who enjoy AI chat in a sidebar akin to Edge or so. For the rest of us, it doesn't change anything.

I don't get why y'all are so mad about this. As long as the features are optional and I can easily turn them off in the settings, they don't bother me at all.
- You don't even have to turn it off, it's how people always ask them to do it: It's opt-in.
- Like people already said - they could be doing literally anything else. Have vacation time, fix any of the bugs, improve performance, anything at all. This is like adding a tattoo of shit to your chest. Sure, it's your chest, but it's also shit
  
  On the other hand, Mozilla has ~750 employees all of whom are working on different projects at different times.
  Their AI work is likely not preventing their development of other projects. Especially considering they are hiring for positions related to AI, I would imagine that current employee's aren't just filling in the gaps in the meantime, but are independent from each others departments.
- A reason that everyone should get behind:
  AI = increased carbon emissions for a product that won't even be useful because AI is really unreliable.
- @unrushed233@lemmings.world if they're going to be forced into the browser, they should be opt-in, not opt-out.
- @unrushed233@lemmings.world AI watching (and reporting on) everything you browse using that browser right back to Mozilla, are you really that naive to believe this won't happen?

The biggest issue with Mozilla if they didn't decide to put some form of AI stuff in Firefox is that their competitors could use it as ammunition to fuel an as campaign painting Firefox as not only out of touch and outdated, but less secure because they don't have AI security.
I can guarantee if average person, like my middle aged parents who aren't very tech savvy, saw an ad pointing that out (no matter how untrue it is) I'd be told about it the next chance they got, proving they believe it.
They have to keep up with what their competitors are doing or get left behind and die a slow and painful death. AI is just the latest trend to be added, and Mozilla is just trying to keep up to ensure whatever remainder of normies still use Firefox don't decide to abandon ship.
I personally don't like it, but what other options are there?
- I mean, let's not forget this is not "putting AI in the browser". This is just providing a sidebar option that you the user can put AI into, should you want to!
  It gives options to users: Exactly what people always tell Mozilla to do.
- Wise words ! The best option would be to add AI by default but let's people to totally disable it either via about:config or an uncheck box in the options.
  Let's be real, only tech savy people mess around with about:config nobs so this wouldn't bother casual users an give others the possibility to disable it.

Just want to clarify there's no LLM integrated IN the browser that many seem to be assuming. This experimental feature loads an external chat window in the sidebar to another service.

the uses of ai that firefox has implemented are optional and great for accessibility. why would you oppose that?
- @cupcakezealot I would oppose that because I don't want ai infecting my computers or life. Having an "opt-out" simply isn't good enough either. IF they deem it necessary to bow down and be submissive to AI, the must make it opt-in and not infect the browser but make it an addon (read extension).
  Anything else would undermine both their browser, and their relationship with their browser users.
  If you want to use AI, use it, but don't make it the default and/or force people to use it, simples

Seems like a pointless waste of time for a first-party effort, when they could be… Idk, implementing the audio manipulation APIs that Discord relies on, or something.
But I don’t necessarily see direct harm from it either. Just useless.

When companies can answer this one simple question, “What specific problem does implementing AI (LLM, etc) solve?”, only then might I consider it.
I have heard of only one, maybe two, instances of AI solving a real problem and it has to do with helping a person to speak again, or to walk again, etc.
I have yet to be convinced of any specific problem AI is solving in a browser or an operating system.
And just because “the internet” is latching onto this latest thing, doesn’t mean it’s right. It just means people see a shiny and want more of it.
- I would amend that to "What specific problem that users have reported does implementing AI solve".
  
  Sure, that, too. Problems are problems, irrespective of by whom and where they are discovered. And solutions should be matched to the problem. If AI is such a solution, great! But I'm not yet convinced that we need to use AI and be in search of problems (which is what CEOs are doing right now), hence my original comment.