AI Controls (formerly 'kill switch') are landing in today's Firefox Nightly, and will land with Firefox 148 later this month.
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@nuintari @firefoxwebdevs Now that‘s the big question: are the very outspoken crowd that hates AI features a majority of Firefox users or are they just very outspoken while those like such features but just don‘t care enough about them to speak up (against the outspoken crowd which can be stressful) here. I don‘t know.
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@Mastokarl @alahmnat @firefoxwebdevs I don't think anyone has illusions that the web was free of bullshit before LLMs.
But LLMs have made it vastly vastly easier to generate bullshit, and as an absolutely inevitable result, LLM-generated bullshit is now drowning out everything else.
This seems pretty uncontroversial to me.
@mike @alahmnat @firefoxwebdevs And then I spent a few hours not sleeping but thinking about your comment (never read mastodon when going to bed!)
Because this is not my impression. And I‘m wondering if the clever ranking mechanism of Kagi (don‘t recall the details but they are much better at filtering out all kinds of slop - AI and human) is why I don‘t see a worse internet today than years ago. Compared to clickbait titles, animated ad horror, AI‘s impact on my browsing is very minor.
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AI Controls (formerly 'kill switch') are landing in today's Firefox Nightly, and will land with Firefox 148 later this month.
For the full details, see the Firefox blog https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/ai-controls/
@firefoxwebdevs too little, too late.
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@wojtek Interesting that you have a Vivaldi.net account, a browser that famously doesn’t include any AI features. Your question is a bit strange in this context, or maybe it’s just a bad attempt at being a contrarian.
@fabio @wojtek it does include translation, which people consider to be AI https://mastodon.social/@firefoxwebdevs/115849251057488746. It even sends the text off-device to be translated, whereas Firefox does it on-device for privacy.
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@ainmosni @firefoxwebdevs it does delete models. They can be re-downloaded, of course, but that might be significant disruption for some users
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@firefoxwebdevs@mastodon.social Maybe it would've been better to just not call the on device features AI features at all. People would be more willing to try them if they don't associate them with massive GPU farms.
@KitsuneVixi @firefoxwebdevs we didn't call translation AI but people still consider it AI https://mastodon.social/@firefoxwebdevs/115849251057488746
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@firefoxwebdevs nice
I think if it runs locally, AI features are quite useful. E.g. I use translations daily. Tab grouping and image alt texts would also be great. Unfortunately they are probably not eligible to run locally.
@alvan @firefoxwebdevs all of those features run locally
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@mike @firefoxwebdevs Preference falsification, it's seen as socially condemnable to be ok with AI, especially in the circles that Mozilla frequents, so I'm not surprised public comments trend negative. Given they've sent an anonymous survey out, I'm pretty sure the balance is split between the no-AI and AI everything camps.
I don't get the vitriol towards Mozilla, at least not for this change, they literally show you how to turn off their AI features
@budududuroiu @firefoxwebdevs "Preference falsification" is a neat rhetorical trick to ignore results one doesn't like. But the simple fact is that Mozilla made a post asking for feedback, and LITERALLY 99% of the replies were strongly negative.
So, who are Mozilla building this for? Not the users they asked about it, that's for sure.
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@mike @alahmnat @firefoxwebdevs And then I spent a few hours not sleeping but thinking about your comment (never read mastodon when going to bed!)
Because this is not my impression. And I‘m wondering if the clever ranking mechanism of Kagi (don‘t recall the details but they are much better at filtering out all kinds of slop - AI and human) is why I don‘t see a worse internet today than years ago. Compared to clickbait titles, animated ad horror, AI‘s impact on my browsing is very minor.
@Mastokarl @alahmnat @firefoxwebdevs First, apologies for ruining your sleep!
Second, it is encouraging to think Kagi can do this. If it has an effective AI filter that might be what distinguishes it enough from Google that a critical mass of people switch.
(I can't imagine how you could program such a thing, though, when the whole point LLM output is to mimic human output as closely as possible.)
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@ainmosni @firefoxwebdevs it does delete models. They can be re-downloaded, of course, but that might be significant disruption for some users
@jaffathecake @firefoxwebdevs About as much disruption as downloading them by default for the people who are flipping this switch, no? Hardly seems worthy of a bigger warning than deleting stuff from a hard drive.
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@budududuroiu @firefoxwebdevs "Preference falsification" is a neat rhetorical trick to ignore results one doesn't like. But the simple fact is that Mozilla made a post asking for feedback, and LITERALLY 99% of the replies were strongly negative.
So, who are Mozilla building this for? Not the users they asked about it, that's for sure.
@mike @firefoxwebdevs A vocal community of a couple thousands is not representative of the millions of Firefox users. Most people don't care about AI in their browser.
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@mike @firefoxwebdevs A vocal community of a couple thousands is not representative of the millions of Firefox users. Most people don't care about AI in their browser.
@budududuroiu @firefoxwebdevs I wonder what your motivation can be for so strongly wanting a 99% consensus to be misrepresentative.
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@budududuroiu @firefoxwebdevs I wonder what your motivation can be for so strongly wanting a 99% consensus to be misrepresentative.
@mike @firefoxwebdevs You consider negative comments in a niche community (most Firefox users aren't forum dwellers) to be representative? I mean, at this point we're just playing team sports and "I'm Team No AI"
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@jaffathecake @firefoxwebdevs About as much disruption as downloading them by default for the people who are flipping this switch, no? Hardly seems worthy of a bigger warning than deleting stuff from a hard drive.
@ainmosni @firefoxwebdevs when do they download by default?
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@jaffathecake @duke_of_germany @firefoxwebdevs i keep seeing this cop-out, but i have yet to see any polling from mozilla that says a majority of their users do want AI in their browser.
e.g. 14 days ago i see an informal poll in reddit with the same conclusion - https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1qhfvkw/interested_in_your_views_on_ai_in_firefox/
the thread inviting people to comment on the AI window a few weeks ago was the same thing, overwhelmingly negative - https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/building-ai-the-firefox-way-shaping-what-s-next-together/td-p/109922
so if in community after community people are nearly unanimous about the pivot to AI, it seems like the burden is on firefox dev team to show that there is some silent majority that is loving it rather than insisting that every community is an echo chamber
@jaffathecake @duke_of_germany @firefoxwebdevs @jonny
Real
"Am I out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong." vibes.
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@alvan @firefoxwebdevs all of those features run locally
@jaffathecake @firefoxwebdevs that is perfect then!
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@duke_of_germany @firefoxwebdevs they're aware of the sentiment. I'm sure you're aware that Mastodon has a high representation of folks who don't like AI, so presenting evidence that Mastodon users don't like AI is kinda… well… not really useful.
No, Jake, I am not aware of this, and I do not believe this to be true.
Mastodon users might be special in the way they articulate their opinion, but by no means does this represent a fringe notion.
See for example the links in the reply of @jonny, or the ongoing AI-vote by DuckDuckGo: https://voteyesornoai.com/.
Ask an arbitrary group of people head on if they want genAI directly built into their software, and they will overwhelmingly say "no".
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@ainmosni @firefoxwebdevs when do they download by default?
@jaffathecake @firefoxwebdevs Aren’t they present before I click that toggle?
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No, Jake, I am not aware of this, and I do not believe this to be true.
Mastodon users might be special in the way they articulate their opinion, but by no means does this represent a fringe notion.
See for example the links in the reply of @jonny, or the ongoing AI-vote by DuckDuckGo: https://voteyesornoai.com/.
Ask an arbitrary group of people head on if they want genAI directly built into their software, and they will overwhelmingly say "no".
Stop portraying Mastodon users as the "anti-AI crazies".
Instead, ask yourself: "What is the relation between Mastodon users & Firefox?"
The answer:
An overwhelming number of Mastodon users used to be your champions.
They are tech people who used to recommend Firefox to the normies in their life. A crowd of mini-influencers, recommending your product.
And I don't understand why you go out of your way to alienate exactly these people.
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@jaffathecake @firefoxwebdevs Aren’t they present before I click that toggle?
@ainmosni @jaffathecake only if you've opted in. The models are downloaded on-demand, when you interact with the feature.
