Firefox for Web DevelopersAI 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/
ArneBab@firefoxwebdevs that UI looks like someone really wanted to rub in the face of users "you are missing out on".
- form with long description text
- use "block" as naming instead of a plain "disable" (implies that this is a strong action on my part)
- big warning popup that names all the things again
- showing all the things anyway (but I just said no! Respect that!)
Dial FOMO to 100.
That feels really wrong.
@ArneBab "block" was picked deliberately, as it's removing all entry points to the feature, not just disabling the feature (e.g. disabled buttons are still there, but these are BLOCKED).
It was important to show the features individually so you can control them individually. E.g. translation is something people explicitly wanted to be able to re-enable https://mastodon.social/@firefoxwebdevs/115849251057488746
@firefoxwebdevs so i "re-enable" stuff I want after "blocking"?
re-enable calls for "disable" as the other part.
What that "block" does is "set default to disable" and "disable all" that we all know from the law-compliant cookie-banners.
Or rather: "make AI opt-in".
Suggestion that does not feel manipulative:
Button [disable all] ⇒ disables all AI options.
Added Option: [enable future AI features by default] ← gets disabled alongside the individual options when clicking [disable all].
@ArneBab it doesn't just disable all existing feature, it also auto-disables future AI features, or 'blocks' them from even appearing in the UI.
@firefoxwebdevs that’s what I mean with
[ ] enable future features by default.
and I’m writing my impression as feedback and this suggestion, because my reaction to the new block option was visceral.
Just seeing the workflow of enabling the block evoked the strong feeling that I’m being pulled by the nose into "do you really want to block? Why not enable just this one feature" (as drug dealers do) instead of my choice being respected.
And that does not match my usual feeling towards Firefox.
@ArneBab but it doesn't enable future feature by default.
You're blocking the entry points to these features, so they cannot be enabled.
@firefoxwebdevs enable future feature by default happens by default.
If that gets disabled on clicking [disable all] (or such), that’s the same choice, but without feeling as manipulative.
And "blocking the entry points … so they cannot be enabled" followed by options to enable them individually is part of what feels so wrong.
@ArneBab We're stumbling on the wording here. 'Enabled' to many people means the feature is active. That's why we went with 'available' for features that aren't actively running, but their entry points are available.
@firefoxwebdevs That sounds like you’re very defensive in all the hate you got the past months and made it worse in trying to give people the impression that they can make a strong statement by hitting "block".
But that’s what causes the reaction for me: if I make a strong statement, despite warning, then I mean it.
Asking "but how about this specific one" feels just like "but can a little bit really hurt?"
1/2
@firefoxwebdevs
For wording: [remove all] would match the intention you’re describing (the antonym of provide¹). And added
"default for future features: (available / unavailable)"
But not to be misunderstood:
I like it that you’re giving the option to disable all of them together. It’s just the way of implementation that feels so wrong.
It feels like FF is making a fuss about me stating my preference.
¹ https://www.powerthesaurus.org/provide/antonyms
2/2
@firefoxwebdevs And I’ve really taken up enough of your time with this.
All I wanted to do was to give you user feedback on the UI. I did that now.
I didn’t want to spread aggression (though I got too emotional) or speak against the block option in general.
I know that UI is hard and that making UI choices that touch a heated societal debate is doubly so.
To sum it up: I’m sorry for stress I caused.
/cc @dveditz
Noa@ArneBab @firefoxwebdevs @dveditz agreed with everything save for your apology. From the conversation, you were making your point rather clear & the response you got was evasiveness & gaslighting, so of course you'd get heated.
@vex I’ve been on the side of the maintainer who misjudged something and has gotten heated responses, and from that experience I think that I got too heated.
It’s really hard not to get defensive when there is a lot of heat already.
And FF devs are regularly taking the heat, even though most just try to do good work.
When you know someone receives a lot of aggression already, you shouldn’t add more.
I realized too late that we were effectively ganging up on them.
@firefoxwebdevs @dveditz
@ArneBab @firefoxwebdevs @dveditz as a former developer myself (10 years), I understand where you're coming from. Were this a normal unpopular feature, I'd agree.
But "AI" is designed to break consent from the ground up. It cannot function without theft, & there's no ambiguity around the harm of such an integration, both now & in the future.
The logical conclusion of inviting a digital bandit to the entrance of the Internet is the control of information by those who own the bandit. It has no place in a supposedly privacy-focused browser. & It's right & correct & moral to yell & gang up on anyone trying to invite the bandit to permanently gatekeep a popular entrance to the internet. Especially when the person inviting isn't naive about the consequences & is gaslighting about the what why & how.
@vex AI built on free culture content and staying true to its licenses (including attribution) is not theft.
Wikipedia is explicitly licensed to allow derivative content -- if it’s under cc by-sa, too. The same goes for almost everything I create outside my job.
Project Gutenberg provides many books that are in the public domain. Training a model on these is unproblematic.
Mozilla voice gathered voice data provided by volunteers with full consent.
@vex AI is a tool.
Most AI is trained on all the internet without consent.
But if people restrict the training set to data they have freely given consent for, then it’s morally and legally sound.
@ArneBab @firefoxwebdevs @dveditz a wolf doesn't hide amongst sheep with its claws & fangs out.
LLMs have legitimate use cases, yes. AI is an intentionally misleading label over LLMs & tend to include the less legitimate (to put it mildly) use cases. Which telegraphs intent.
Google funds something like 90% of Mozilla. There's 0 chance they're not pushing Mozilla in this direction.
@vex Mozilla has been filling up a war chest for the past years.
They can survive some years without Google.
And you say AI when you want to be understood by non-devs.
That’s not to say that you’re wrong. Just that I don’t consider your conclusion the only plausible one.
@firefoxwebdevs @dveditz
@ArneBab @firefoxwebdevs @dveditz of course it's not the only plausible outcome. "Claws retracted". But can legitimate use cases ever claw back the scale of investment in AI & turn a profit? No.
Will they stop taking Google's money? Unlikely.
Will they continue to force in the features Google says they must to continue being funded? Likely.
Will the company that dropped "Don't be evil" from their values not do evil? Unlikely.
@ArneBab @firefoxwebdevs @dveditz please don't neglect to take into account the context of these companies existing under fascism, since that context is essential. Control over information to the degree that browser integrations of AI can manage isn't something that fascism won't take advantage of. & We can already see the effects this has in media to know where this is headed.
@vex which is why if Mozilla actually manages to get auditable on-device LLMs to provide the core features people already got dependent on, this can actually be important.
Will they do that? I don’t know.
But I know that if Mozilla as project and company bows to fascism, there are people in the EU with integrity who can carry on the baton.
Not as quickly without Google money, but some of that is happening already.
@ArneBab @firefoxwebdevs @dveditz compare the number of users in mastodon vs twitter & you'll see how effective hoping people will use a safer alternative is. Mark my words, we're witnessing the conquering of the Internet itself. Or at least the attempt to do so.
But it appears this is where we'll agree to disagree.
@vex have you seen these Mastodon vs. X posting stats in Germany?
https://gruene.social/@netzbegruenung/116005932815523839
Mastodon is bit by bit eating X’s lunch. At least here.
And did you hear about the #DID?
https://di.day/
Hope seems pretty effective, though it’s not instant and it’s usually underfunded.
@firefoxwebdevs @dveditz
netzbegrünung (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image +++Januar-Update+++ Welches Microblogging-Netzwerk führt bei der Anzahl an Posts unter den Hashtags der Landeshauptstädte? Hier die Karte dazu! 📍 Erfasst wurden die Daten vom 01.09.25 bis 31.01.26 in den Netzwerken X, Mastodon (Fediverse*) und Bluesky. Alle Posts unter #Berlin, #Hamburg... wurden jeweils erfasst. #Berlin #Hamburg #München #Kiel #Bremen #Schwerin #Hannover #Wiesbaden #Mainz #Magdeburg #Saarbrücken #Potsdam #Erfurt #Düsseldorf #Dresden #Stuttgart #Mastodon #Bluesky #Twitter
@ArneBab @firefoxwebdevs @dveditz
If you're gonna finagle the context then of course you can paint a more hopeful picture. We're of different minds & I won't change yours, but I also can't seem to help but respond since this is a topic I feel so strongly about. So I'm gonna do my best to paint the picture outright & mute the thread for my sanity.
1. We're less than a decade away before the damage to the climate is irreversible.
2. Mastodon has 5% of total twitter users after a decade.
3. Chrome, Safari, Edge, & Firefox make up 93% of all web traffic.
4. The US is already a fascist country, & countries don't revert after manufacturing consent to elect a fascist. Never in the history of ever; only violence changes this.
5. The right wing Nazification pipelines silicon valley made are highly effective at manufacturing said consent.
6. The US is pushing other nations to the right, & doing so effectively (see: brexit, age verification, chat control, etc).
7. The only thing the majority implementation of AI does effectively is destabilization. Examples: poisoning the information well with disinformation, using up freshwater resources & electricity at the rate of entire countries (so far), validating delusions for those believing AI is actually "thinking".
8. The stat of Nazi regimes lasting 30-50 years on average is based on much less advanced tools of population control.
9. Humanity cannot survive 50+ years of fascism due to the environmental damage alone.
10. Fascism benefits from catastrophe because enough pain & people *want* to be deluded, just to mentally escape from it.
There's not nearly enough power nor force nor scale in what already exists to push back against this. I'm not gonna call it an outright inevitability, but if nothing changes it will be.
@vex 2. twitter has 80-90% bots, so 5% mastodon does not look too bad in comparison.
3. the core of all browsers is Free Software (thanks to Netscape switching to a free license before AOL bought it and some hackers at KDE choosing a copyleft LGPL license over 20 years ago). That’s why Servo is possible: https://servo.org/
7. these are not the kinds of services Firefox adds.
About inevitability, Ursula K. LeGuin gives me hope:
https://www.draketo.de/zitate#power
@vex Also, why I answer your bleak outlook: you definitely lose the future the moment you give up the idea that a better world is possible.
@ArneBab @firefoxwebdevs @dveditz I haven't given up hope that a better world is possible. I just don't see anything that exists making changes towards a better world as effectively as the changes being made for a worse world. But I'm still working towards a solution.
@vex I fear we can agree to that at the moment: fossil funded far right actors are currently getting stronger.
Russia, China, and (since Trump 2) the USA are supporting the far right in the EU.
Russia supports dictators in Africa.
And the petro-states in the middle east are funding religious extremism.
Letting billionaires get as rich as they are now and getting so dependent on oil and gas show consequences.
But solar and wind and FLOSS are spreading.
@firefoxwebdevs @dveditz