Firefox uses on-device downloaded-on-demand ML models for privacy-preserving translation.
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Firefox uses on-device downloaded-on-demand ML models for privacy-preserving translation.
They're not LLMs. They're trained on open data.
Should translation be disabled if the AI 'kill switch' is active?
@firefoxwebdevs@mastodon.social Why are you missing the obvious option for "Keep all AI out of Firefox"?
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@firefoxwebdevs @angelfeast @heptapodEnthusiast I mean, this is the same account that recently posted that they hope Firefox can regain the trust of its user base.
Nonsense like this isn't making that happen.
The choices as you present them are all, "AI code for everyone, but you can turn it off!" Except the kill switch feature doesn't even exist yet and you are already carving it up with exceptions. If your current trajectory holds true, and I'll bet good money it does, the kill switch is going to end up being nothing but exceptions, rendering it effectively useless.
@nuintari @firefoxwebdevs @angelfeast @heptapodEnthusiast Also, the destiny of all software kill switches against a marketing-driven feature is to be removed a year later. Our dude seems to think Mastodon users have no experience of the computer industry.
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@firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari
Nobody *wants* a computer. I’m including phones there.
You get a computer 'cos you’ve got a *job* to do. So you get software to do the job. And you need to run the software on a computer, and it’ll have an operating system.
Neither the computer or the OS are supposed to be noticed.
If anyone notices your operating system, you've already lost.
I just got a new phone, a Fairphone. It supports alternate Android versions, e/os and PostmarketOS. Like, those are *officially* supported, not just hackish extras.
But I’ve kept it to completely stock Android 15, 'cos I need particular commercial apps, from the Google Play store, running on a standard system, to do my stuff.
I could muck around with an alternate system and hack the Play store onto it. Or I could not do that.
I’m used to mucking around, I’ve been on Linux since 2005. And I was on FreeBSD before that. (I moved when I noticed that all the stuff I was running was Linux binaries under emulation and Ubuntu had vastly superior package management.) I’ve got like *one* Windows app that doesn’t work in Wine, that’s the Kindle Previewer. I run it in a Windows 10 virtual machine.
Platforms *must* be transparent. All these platforms start transparent then some marketer goes NOTICE ME and they think they’re the star of the show. Windows did that. It’s got a job, it’s to run thirty years of all your old stuff! Now Windows 11 gets in your face and wants to be your *friend*.
Linux has always fallen at the fact that people have to notice it. But Windows and now even MacOS, especially with Liquid Ass, have gone hard into NOTICE ME. Linux is getting new users because it’s *less* annoying than Windows 11, even for running Windows software.
Even the stock Android 15 has delusions of stardom. No, I want the power button to be a power button, not a fucking Gemini button.
Firefox started as Phoenix, which was very much a blank slate browser. The Mozilla Suite was the open source version of Netscape 6/7, an AOL project, and extremely NOTICE ME. Phoenix’s whole selling point was it just appeared and there was the web. (That’s why they removed the splash screen.)
Chrome started the same way - blank slate, then it slowly decayed into NOTICE ME. Internet Explorer started the same way, IE4 versus Netscape Navigator going NOTICE ME. Then IE and Edge decayed into NOTICE ME.
Generative AI doesn't have a purpose, so it goes NOTICE ME and demands the user finds a use case for it. Then the people who think NOTICE ME is winning, not losing, don't understand why the users hate it so much.
Firefox is adding AI to go NOTICE ME. This is a loser strategy for losers. This is obvious to everyone who actually uses a web browser.
If anyone notices your web browser, you’ve already lost.
@davidgerard @firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari
I don't agree with every point made here, but this is a truly wonderful manifesto, and I would gladly march behind it.
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@fasterandworse @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt
Given the poll was about translations, the option you wanted would amount to unshipping a largely well-regarded feature.
Again, did you seriously and honestly believe that was on the table for Firefox 148?
@firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt who said unshipping?
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@firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt who said unshipping?
@fasterandworse @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt
By making something a plugin, I assume that means removing it from its current place - integrated into the browser. If I'm wrong about that, your option is unclear.
"it shouldn't be in the browser code in the first place" suggests to me removing it from the browser code, no?
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@fasterandworse @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt
Given the poll was about translations, the option you wanted would amount to unshipping a largely well-regarded feature.
Again, did you seriously and honestly believe that was on the table for Firefox 148?
@firefoxwebdevs @fasterandworse @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @zzt your response again fails to address the many "make them all add-ons" responses.
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@firefoxwebdevs @zzt You ignored the firefox userbase's voice when it came to adding AI in the first place, don't pretend you're listening now when you're really just trying to get the users to come up with justifications for what you have already decided to do. Firefox users have repeatedly said we do not want AI features imstalled by default, you chose not to listen and now you're trying to find ways you can feel less bad about that by pretending you gave people options when it comes to AI usage, rather than taking one away.
If you cared about what 'the community' wants, you would have asked people when the AI notion was first pitched and taken no for an answer, but yet again, AI enthusiasts have acted without consent.
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@davidgerard @firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari
I don't agree with every point made here, but this is a truly wonderful manifesto, and I would gladly march behind it.
@jztusk @firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari mostly derived from @fasterandworse rants tbf
a "manifesto" is a polemic against the state of things. I think I'm describing the existing world here.
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@fasterandworse @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt
By making something a plugin, I assume that means removing it from its current place - integrated into the browser. If I'm wrong about that, your option is unclear.
"it shouldn't be in the browser code in the first place" suggests to me removing it from the browser code, no?
@firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt why would moving if "from its current place" and making it an add-on be "unshipping"?
Convert it to an add-on, pre-install it, because we're past the opt-in point by now, then we can uninstall it like any other add-on and you can all forget about a nonsense kill switch
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@nuintari @firefoxwebdevs @angelfeast @heptapodEnthusiast Also, the destiny of all software kill switches against a marketing-driven feature is to be removed a year later. Our dude seems to think Mastodon users have no experience of the computer industry.
@davidgerard @nuintari @firefoxwebdevs @angelfeast @heptapodEnthusiast
Who are you to know, it's not like your name is in the firefox credits or something
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@cstross @StarkRG @firefoxwebdevs @davidgerard ...has google figured out how to monetize it? I still only see nonconsensual unasked for ai results in my searches. I'm definitely not paying for any of that
@autonomousapps @StarkRG @firefoxwebdevs @davidgerard They have studies showing that if they show the AI results first, a significant proportion of google users stay on google (to explore the AI results) rather than following outbound links to the public web. Thereby giving google more opportunities to shove google's own ads under the users noses.
It really *is* that moronic.
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@fasterandworse @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt
By making something a plugin, I assume that means removing it from its current place - integrated into the browser. If I'm wrong about that, your option is unclear.
"it shouldn't be in the browser code in the first place" suggests to me removing it from the browser code, no?
@firefoxwebdevs @fasterandworse @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @zzt make it a preinstalled addon, easy. Mozilla has done preinstalled addons lots before.
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@nuintari @firefoxwebdevs @angelfeast @heptapodEnthusiast Also, the destiny of all software kill switches against a marketing-driven feature is to be removed a year later. Our dude seems to think Mastodon users have no experience of the computer industry.
@davidgerard @nuintari @firefoxwebdevs @angelfeast @heptapodEnthusiast Once Lucy pulls the football away from you for the 10,000th time, you can't help but learn not to trust the MBAs touching your computer.
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@firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt why would moving if "from its current place" and making it an add-on be "unshipping"?
Convert it to an add-on, pre-install it, because we're past the opt-in point by now, then we can uninstall it like any other add-on and you can all forget about a nonsense kill switch
@fasterandworse @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt only a couple of messages ago you said it would be an "add-on that the user has to explicitly install".
That sounds pretty different to pre-installing.
Can you see how, by taking your comment at face value, I assumed you meant the user would need to explicitly install it?
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@jztusk @firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari mostly derived from @fasterandworse rants tbf
a "manifesto" is a polemic against the state of things. I think I'm describing the existing world here.
@davidgerard @firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @fasterandworse
Yeah, "manifesto" was a word choice that felt not quite right even as I was typing it.
But regardless of any better name, if you put "Firefox, Stop Trying To Be Noticed" on a banner, I would start marching behind it.
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@firefoxwebdevs @fasterandworse @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @zzt your response again fails to address the many "make them all add-ons" responses.
@davidgerard @firefoxwebdevs @fasterandworse @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @zzt honestly the way Mozilla is going it's more likely they instead break the extension API to prop up their ad businesses
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@firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt why would moving if "from its current place" and making it an add-on be "unshipping"?
Convert it to an add-on, pre-install it, because we're past the opt-in point by now, then we can uninstall it like any other add-on and you can all forget about a nonsense kill switch
@firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt if there are reasons this cannot be an add-on, then THAT is the discussion you should be having with the community. Because that is the barrier you have not addressed and it is what makes a kill switch so peculiar.
I don't appreciate your defensiveness, and false transparency posturing. You are prepared to ask for clarity from people asking softball questions, but you're ignoring the slew of "make it an add-on" suggestions
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@firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt if there are reasons this cannot be an add-on, then THAT is the discussion you should be having with the community. Because that is the barrier you have not addressed and it is what makes a kill switch so peculiar.
I don't appreciate your defensiveness, and false transparency posturing. You are prepared to ask for clarity from people asking softball questions, but you're ignoring the slew of "make it an add-on" suggestions
@fasterandworse @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt it seems weird to say I'm ignoring it while I'm replying to your messages about it. Whereas you're moving the goalposts on what you want from explicit install to pre-install https://mastodon.social/@firefoxwebdevs/115854752514107340
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@firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt if there are reasons this cannot be an add-on, then THAT is the discussion you should be having with the community. Because that is the barrier you have not addressed and it is what makes a kill switch so peculiar.
I don't appreciate your defensiveness, and false transparency posturing. You are prepared to ask for clarity from people asking softball questions, but you're ignoring the slew of "make it an add-on" suggestions
@firefoxwebdevs @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt and you've just done it to me by saying that a mention of "explicit install" throws the baby out with the bathwater.
You've called @davidgerard 's position "immutable" as if we're unable to have a serious, unified stance against a very clear overstep between a passive web browser and the encroachment of something which is not that.
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@fasterandworse @heptapodEnthusiast @nuintari @davidgerard @zzt only a couple of messages ago you said it would be an "add-on that the user has to explicitly install".
That sounds pretty different to pre-installing.
Can you see how, by taking your comment at face value, I assumed you meant the user would need to explicitly install it?
@firefoxwebdevs @fasterandworse @heptapodEnthusiast @davidgerard @zzt hey, that is what I meant when I typed it. I want the AI features to be so optional, that the end user has to go out of their way to install them as add-ons. That is what I meant when I said it.
