> ...the AI kill switch ... has been flipped by just 1% of Firefox users to turn off AI completely.

[fasterandworse@hci.social]

> ...the AI kill switch ... has been flipped by just 1% of Firefox users to turn off AI completely. And it's being partially used by just 3% to turn off some AI features in the browser.

THAT'S BECAUSE IT IS OPT-OUT!

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mozillas-ceo-knows-you-might-not-want-ai-in-firefox/

[ozzelot@mstdn.social]

@fasterandworse
And also, people who tend to disable AI features also tend to disable the telemetry that reports this disabling

[fasterandworse@hci.social]

> I think there's a general user sentiment of, 'hey, I didn't ask for that, and I didn't choose that.' The great thing about Firefox is ... we offer choice

mozilla exists in a bizarro world of consent

[rose_alibi@post.lurk.org]

@fasterandworse good grief. it's not like they advertise its presence... people don't even know they can turn the sound off on their phone keyboards

[zzt@mas.to]

@fasterandworse it’s so fucking predictable and tiring how quickly this was weaponized

also it’s been said already but I will scream it as loud as I can anyway: almost everyone turning off the AI crap is also turning off the metrics, obviously, and Mozilla refuses to make that utterly obvious correlation (because this was the point of the killswitch the entire time)

[darby3@zirk.us]

@fasterandworse sigh

[aparrish@friend.camp]

@fasterandworse lol i didn't even know i'd been opted in on mobile until i read this article. anyway, they have marketing people, right? they should know that 1% conversion is pretty huge for an action *they barely advertise to users* and hide two dialogs deep in settings

[zzt@mas.to]

@fasterandworse like, we know from polling not done by horseshit AI corps like Mozilla that AI is incredibly unpopular. we don’t really need Mozilla to try and gaslight us on this but if a corporation ever stops gaslighting it’s because it’s dead.

[tinker@infosec.exchange]

@ozzelot @fasterandworse - Exactly. This has "Sampling Bias" written all over it.

[miss_rodent@girlcock.club]

@fasterandworse Also - Some of the ESR versions that are still in use don't have the kill switch yet?
Like, I had to disable it all in about:config on 140.11.0esr (on slackware)

[fasterandworse@hci.social]

@zzt the thing about making it browser addons instead of integrated is it would have served them well as a risk mitigation strategy

[fasterandworse@hci.social]

@aparrish their CMO is a huge AI booster as well

[torontowill@mastodon.social]

@fasterandworse How many people who turned on the AI kill switch also turned off telemetry reporting to Mozilla? I'd guess it's a lot, but we'll never know!

[ndevenish@mas.to]

@fasterandworse see also: a fucking VPN button magically appearing in my extension bar without my consent

Honestly thought I had been hit by malware

[fasterandworse@hci.social]

@ndevenish with the shitty (x) offline indicator that looks like a close button

[emenel@post.lurk.org]

@fasterandworse a lot of people who would have used it also just ditched firefox entirely because of this

[rycochet@furs.social]

@fasterandworse they know because their community told them every step of the way, but they did it anyway and then did an AI slop video promising to spend untold riches on a thing people didn't want.

[tock@corteximplant.com]

@emenel @fasterandworse The brilliant thing about Waterfox is it has a desktop and mobile app, so I ditched Firefox completely. #FuckMozilla

[bpl@snac.bsd.cafe]

I am guessing that they know that thanks to telemetry. People who are interested in turning off LLM functionalities will be also interested in turning off telemetry. This might mean that statistical sample is not representative.

[sb@metroholografix.ca]

@fasterandworse
I think a considerable number of people just automatically switched away from mainline #Firefox in favour of a privacy-respecting fork such as #Librewolf.