@davidrevoy I actually like how Firefox has handled AI - small local models, no spying to train AI on my data. For users who insist on using a mainstream online chatbot, it lets them do it without forcing it on others. (And there are more such users than I thought. People who I thought are way too computer illiterate to use AI surprised me by using ChatGPT.)
Firefox lets me translate text locally without big tech spying on my translations. Is this bad because it happens to use neural networks?
@bersl2 Mozilla has a history of being a target of pitchfork-and-torch crowds.
Making these extensions would only make sense if they were preinstalled, as the overwhelming majority of Firefox users don't install any extensions, not even a content blocker.
People are using "AI" as a buzzword, I even saw a literal shampoo use it. I do not believe in the fearmongering that Mozilla Firefox will become a data-stealing browser with user as the product, like OpenAI or Perplexity ones do.
@elgregor Careful.... Last time I made rational, logical sense to the angry mob carrying pitchforks about AI the moderators hypocritical censorship banned/deleted my post with the ultimate reason being.... "Don't be a jerk".
Doesn't matter what you say if it isnt anti-AI they will burn you at the stake. It's the strangest thing I've ever seen.
@x41h @elgregor "AI" is a Nazi Bar. There are plausible uses for LLMs but so long as the entire industry is lined up behind literal fascists, multibillionaires, and financiers doing their best to bring on DOTCOM 3.0, I will treat it as actively harmful and people cheering it on, as at best ignoring the bar they're in.
@oddhack @x41h Yeah, the big tech LLM companies are terrible.
AI is a very broad term, encompassing multiple technologies, not just neural networks and especially not just LLMs. Additionally, technologies themselves are one thing, the big tech based on them is another thing. Blaming genetic algorithms for what OpenAI is doing would be silly. Let's use the right words for what we mean.
@elgregor @davidrevoy Firefox offline translation is great. But it is absolutely not what they are marketing as "AI". At no point in time they advertised this as AI. So yeah, it's great, and it's not what they mean by adding AI. They have been advertising "ethical AI" since almost 10 years, and there zero thing to show except 35 millions spent on proprietary AI startups.
@bohwaz @davidrevoy Many people (correctly) refer to this kind of features as "AI" and so do various news outlets. I have seen multiple people upset at local models and asking how to delete them. I have seen people advertise Firefox derivatives that remove the local models with the lack of those models described as a feature. I believe this mostly stems from misinformation and this is why I will keep explaining that "AI" is a very broad term that includes good things as well as bad things.
@elgregor @bohwaz @davidrevoy "misinformation" exactly! Thank you! You restored my faith in the Fediverse. They aren't all like you....
@elgregor Yes, but Mozilla's long history of doing things that piss off its long-standing users and historical allies has to be taken into account.
They could have chosen not to lean into the buzzwords. They could have chosen to release these as extensions (there are probably halfway-decent technical reasons they didn't).
But no, they had their newest corporate dipshit come out and use the term "AI browser" to describe what they want Firefox to become. They woke up that day and yet again chose violence.