Firefox uses on-device downloaded-on-demand ML models for privacy-preserving translation.

[barubary@infosec.exchange]

@firefoxwebdevs @fasterandworse @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt Honestly, why not? You've done it before. Pocket, classic browser extensions, Chatzilla, a usable address bar, the option to switch back to a usable address bar, plugins, ... all "unshipped" and that's just off the top of my head.

[pixx@merveilles.town]

@nuintari

I suspect, even more, that lack of ranked choice voting is hurting hard here.

A lot of people probably voted for the option presented that was closest to what they actually want. What they actually wabt isn't an option because Mozilla won't consider it.

But of the remaining options, there's a preference they'd have over the one they voted for.

Giving people a poll where the options they want are deliberately included is going to generate bad results which will only result in upsetting the community even more, because now you'll claim to have consent..

@firefoxwebdevs @angelfeast @zzt @yoasif @fmasy @Rycochet @davidgerard

[theentity@social.treehouse.systems]

@firefoxwebdevs @davidgerard @yoasif @fmasy @Rycochet @zzt

I'm not sure an official firefox account is allowed to make passive-aggressive snipes about "immutable positions", especially when it comes to AI.

[autonomousapps@mstdn.social]

@cstross @StarkRG @firefoxwebdevs @davidgerard oh geeze. I'm clearly in the minority. Thanks for explaining!

[finlaydag33k@social.linux.pizza]

@m0rpk I second this.
I cannot for the love of me think about a moment where I opened my webbrowser and thought:
- "I miss a search engine"
- "I miss a translation engine"
- "I miss webpage summariser"
- "I miss an LLM front-end" (I don't even use LLMs)
- "I miss a client-side LLM"

I just wanna open my webbrowser and not be bothered by anything dammit...

@firefoxwebdevs

[rubinjoni@mastodon.social]

@davidgerard @nuintari @firefoxwebdevs @angelfeast @heptapodEnthusiast It's not a switch, it's a rug. You can sweep stuff under it, and you can do the rug pull at any future date.

[flesh@transfem.social]

@dahukanna@mastodon.social @DiogoConstantino@masto.pt @firefoxwebdevs@mastodon.social Machine Learning is a field that's wider and older than the LLM/diffusion/whatever mess that's been marketed as "AI" and led to the current bubble. Labeling it as "a subset of artificial intelligence" is at best a simplification and at worst an outright manipulation to confuse the public about the realities of the technology. Google is not a trustworthy source for this topic.

[davidgerard@circumstances.run]

@sotolf @nuintari @firefoxwebdevs @angelfeast @heptapodEnthusiast no it's in the *mozilla* credits

[heptapodenthusiast@mathstodon.xyz]

@barubary @firefoxwebdevs @fasterandworse @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt Nevermind that the origin of Firefox *itself*, back when it was an experimental rogue project named Phoenix, was to jettison the accumulated weight of Mozilla Suite and move all the bells and whistles to optional add-ons. Back when the browser also included an e-mail, Usenet, calendar, and chat app that couldn't be turned off. Mozilla is actively unlearning the original lesson of Firefox's wild success.

[sodiboo@gaysex.cloud]

@firefoxwebdevs@mastodon.social i maintain that the "AI kill switch" is a stupid name for such a feature. Stop calling it AI, this term is meaningless as indicated by the disagreement in this poll. You should rephrase it in a way that makes it more obvious what features would be included.

I mostly care about the AI kill switch from a privacy standpoint. I don't want any chatbot sidebar, or a summarization tool that sends my stuff off to some API. But I do like device-local ML features that work offline.

For me, these two toggles would be perfect:

[ X ] Enable ML features
|
\-- [ ] Enable ML features that require an Internet connection.

Turning off the top one would obviously disable translations. But turning off just the bottom one would obviously keep translations.

[sotolf@polymaths.social]

@davidgerard @nuintari @firefoxwebdevs @angelfeast @heptapodEnthusiast Ah, sorry

[davidgerard@circumstances.run]

@fasterandworse @firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @zzt every accusation is a confession. he's admitted after that accusation that in fact he considers the AI immutable.

[davidgerard@circumstances.run]

@gourd @firefoxwebdevs @fasterandworse @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @zzt the CEO literally floated doing just that

[davidgerard@circumstances.run]

@sotolf @nuintari @firefoxwebdevs @angelfeast @heptapodEnthusiast (specifically i cowrote the Mozilla 1.0 FAQ. I got a Mozilla 1.0 CD as a thank you! So many hours in the volunteer documentation mines ... I had to write XSLT ...)

[heptapodenthusiast@mathstodon.xyz]

@barubary @firefoxwebdevs @fasterandworse @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt I can only assume that Mozilla is angling to be bought by AOL Time Warner like Netscape was.

[orange_lux@eldritch.cafe]

@mkljczk @firefoxwebdevs exactly. Gen AI / Slop machines should be distinguished from other kinds of AI.

[ddelemeny@mastodon.xyz]

@funkylab @m0rpk @firefoxwebdevs

Quite the friendly tone here. Firefox shipping a feature that unilaterally makes derivative work of any written content on the internet without the author's review or consent isn't exactly part of my definition of the open web. Please don't conflate your opinion on widespread machine translation with the term.

Translation also brings its own ethical can of worms. Say Firefox mistranslates a critical information, resulting in loss or injury. Who's responsible?

[sotolf@polymaths.social]

@davidgerard @nuintari @firefoxwebdevs @angelfeast @heptapodEnthusiast

I had to write XSLT

Ooof, my condolances, I've only done a little bit of it, and I already have scars.

[kyle_pegasus@scalie.club]

@firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari so you admit that your interpretation of what "the vast majority of people feel" is based on a dataset you deliberately doctored to exclude anything you don't want to hear?

Your "interpretation" of popular userbase opinion is less than worthless, it's actively dishonest, self deluding, and alienating to the userbase.

Your behavior on mastodon is why today I finally switched to waterfox.

[heptapodenthusiast@mathstodon.xyz]

@sotolf @davidgerard The World's Worst LISP