Technology

trustworthy AI

Our initial offering will include ChatGPT, Google Gemini, HuggingChat, and Le Chat Mistral

What

people please actually read the article not the headline; this is literally about accessibility improvements for blind and visually impaired people for generating alt text inside of documents and pdfs.

"Trustworthy AI" + Recent aquisiton of an advertising analytics company + a call for people to inform on third party sources of Firefox = Down the enshitification rabbit hole we go.

Why does my open source browser need proprietary SaaS products stuffed into it?

Isn't this what extensions are for?

I wish they spent their time fixing bugs, rather than implementing this bullshit

Our initial offering will include ChatGPT, Google Gemini, HuggingChat, and Le Chat Mistral, but we will continue adding AI services that meet our standards for quality and user experience.

Is that the same Mozilla that started the Joint Statement on AI Safety and Openness?

What in living hell do proprietary and predatory AI services even doing here?

Mozilla just offered users to feed into the very abomination they claim to fight.

Also, for all things "AI", local is the only way to go if you ever want to have a chance at privacy.

Honestly, the worst part of the AI craze is that so many people hear AI now and immediately hate it even though it can really do some amazing stuff, e.g. in medicine. AI as a blanket term just has so much variance, there's a ton of trash and a ton of great stuff.

The new CEO of Mozilla, Laura Chambers, has a background working at all sorts of evil companies like AirBnB and PayPal. Its absolutely no surprise that the company immediately dropped plans to diversify in ethical, unique and privacy friendly ways as soon as she joined.

CEOs getting paid primarily in stock means grifters like this will drop their USP for whatever trend makes the line go up, if it is crypto, NFTs, or AI.

Not going to lie, AI can be a very powerfull tool but the "we want your browsing experience to be divine, but don't worry we have your back" scares me shitless. Firefox has always had our backs, why do they feel the need to mention it now? Maybe I'm being paranoid but I feel like a browser shoulf just be a browser.

Pretty sure the only thing I wouldn't object to AI being used for in Firefox would be ad blocking. Surely they're going to use this for that right?

...

Right?

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Shit.

native tab grouping would be a much more desirable feature, to me

Why Mozilla? Why? You were the chosen one... Fuck it, I'm going back to lynx! Tabs? Sure we have tabs in lynx, just run lynx in tmux

No fuckin’ thanks.

The way I see AI being implemented into Firefox, regardless of whether it's gonna be opt-in or out in the future is that they need to keep up with the latest browser trends in the future. If they don't, they will definitely lose more of whatever probably small amount of remaining normies who don't use edge or chrome but instead opt for Firefox. They're not tech literate enough to see a conveniently placed ad telling them that xyz browser now uses AI security features and Firefox doesn't and discern the fact that it's a ploy to get them to switch. We need more normies if we really want a chance to keep Firefox more than just treadingn water, and the best way is to offer more random bullshit of the week to keep them from switching to a competitor.

Any good forks without AI? I really don't want that AI companies with my data.

As long as I can disable it, sure. Knock yourself out.

I think it makes sense. I like ChatGPT and I appreciate having easy access to it. What I really wish is the option to use local models instead. I realize most people don't have machines that can tokenize quickly enough but for those that do...

Anyone have any other good suggestions for Firefox alternatives? Sounds like I may be needing to switch soon.