Not commenting the Mozilla layoffs or new direction but I see my timeline going “Oh no Firefox will go full hype on AI”.
This is only due to the framing by Techcrunch: If you read the memo that partially leaked, there's no sign that Firefox will receive a massive influx of generative AI features.
When you say you don't want AI in your browser. Really, you don't want translation services or copy text from image? Not all AI is equal.
Have you reacted after only reading the title of the article?
@anthony t’en a pas marre de réfléchir et d’être raisonnable ?
En vrai, merci de calmer nos instincts bestiaux primaires. 🙏
"AI is not a solution looking for the problem"
@anthony i reacted after seeing very angry comments on the new direction by (former/current) firefox/mozilla staff on my timeline
i feel like they probably have a decent handle on what's going on
@eniko Do you have the toots in question?
FWIW, I’m a former mozilla staff :) (2010-2015)
@anthony really. I don't want those things. I legitimately can't imagine why anyone would want them in-browser.
And I find your attitude of "but THINGS! they want to give you MORE THINGS!" incomprehensible.
? Because this actually gives the user more control and privacy. Traditional online translation services involve sending it off to run on some mega corp's computer. Not ideal.
The translation feature is practical and secure. I don't get the upset, really.
If they started doing remote bs or such I would understand the uproar. The currrent stuff in the browser is legitemately practical.
This is getting absurd. What are you even asking about? I've used this feature plenty (even offline); it's great. You can view the source code if you don't trust the claim that it "never leaves your device"
I, myself, have found the feature practical. And it's not just me - translation services are as popular as ever. This is a local version of that.
What is your question? Elaborate. What does my reply need to be to satisfy whatever random whim you have right now?
@Amoshias @anthony
I did not flip. Tone can't be easily inferred from text; it's a limitation of the medium.
Would you like to take the chance to clarify and elaborate what you're asking?
I'm open to continuing and reseting the "tone" of the conversation, but I'm currently not under the impression you actually want an answer because you won't give me the neccesary context to understand how to answer it.
I was exasperated. "What are you basing that off of" is an opaque and open-ended question. I could only assume that you meant for elaboration on "practical" and "secure". And then you asked it again, with absolutely no clarification.
How am I supposed to know what you're asking? Clearly I didn't get it right the first time, so why else would you ask it again like that if not to be a jerk? I was under the impression you didn't want a conversation; now I'm certain.
I'm willing to be self-aware about that. Maybe you can understand how that's hard when you feel slighted. I'm definitely willing to work twoards something less half-assed, but putting in that kind of effort for someone who doesn't seem to want to reciprocate is exhausting and I know from experience it's unsustainble.
If you want to move past this you know where to find me.
@anthony I don't want any "AI" that isn't processed locally.
Given that almost all "AI" at the moment is not local, I don't want any AI in my browser.
Once "AI" stops being "a service" which requires posting my stuff back to some third party, I may become interested.
@anthony there is no reason to build translation or copy text from image services into the browser. These type of features are for convenience, and if needed, users will just install an extension.
Many APIs already supported in Chrome have very limited availability in Firefox. Mozilla should focus on adding them, otherwise they will lose even more users. https://fosspost.org/firefox-has-lost-around-70m-users-in-last-5-years/
But translation and OCR are functions that have existed in applications for a long time without the buzzword “AI” being slapped on them. When Mozilla talks about incorporating “AI” into Firefox I hear “jumping on the LLM bullshit generator bandwagon like everyone else.” I’ll be happy if they prove me wrong.
So, there was no translation service or copy text from image before AI? 🤔
@anthony Specifically, the reason "AI" works "better" than OCR is that it biases the choices of what characters (or rather whole words/phrases) to pick based on the context of the image - other words, illustrations, etc.
I DO NOT WANT those biases in the conversion!
I'm happy with a few mistranscribed characters a human reader can read over. I'm not happy with meaning potentially being radically altered because it "looked more likely" to a model trained on the internet's sewage.
@anthony What is a web browser supposed to do?
Different users will have have different answers, and that's why extensions are a thing.
Declaring that translation and OCR via "AI" is just good, convenient progress is, well...falling for the hype.
I don't want corporate sociopaths in my browser.
What article?
@anthony @jakelazaroff Mozilla have a history of slapping LLM-based AI into places where people don't want it, and being stubborn and antagonistic about feedback.
The whole "AI Help" thing in the MDN docs is a prime example, should you need it.
It's very hard to give Mozilla the benefit of the doubt, given past experiences here.
Really, you don't want translation services or copy text from image?
Correct. Both of those features would likely run remotely (if they were designed properly to not make assumptions about user hardware). If what I'm browsing is being sent elsewhere, it defeats the purpose of using Firefox: to have a more private browser.
I also don't want the man-hours needed to implement those services being taken away from other actually useful things. We know that this is guaranteed to happen since layoffs mean there is, as usual, more work than there are workers.
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