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

@twifkak They're using the "PD" mark, thus public domain.

@twifkak Also notice that Mastodon instances are using LibreTranslate.

Has that been debated as well?

@firefoxwebdevs Automatic translations are good and an internet in which people don't feel like they can't speak their native tongue for fear of losing their audience can only be a good thing.

Not sure how any reasonable person can believe that such a domain-specific model begets similar ethical objections as modern LLMs.

You know, folks don't hate AI because they're scared of neural networks...

@tasket @twifkak seems to me like that refers to the dataset, not to the source material. if the source material was truly public domain, that information is not easy for me to find.

@firefoxwebdevs I’d say keep the translation thing and simply lose all the other LLM/GenAI/chatbot stuff altogether*. I think this is an excellent marketing opportunity. There are plenty of people highly skeptical of “AI”. This is a big market! You could be the next Brother, winning by refraining from shooting yourself in the foot (https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-laser-wi-fi-its-fine). And you’ll be ahead of the curve when The Bubble pops.
I’m not kidding.

(*they can still be opt in plugins)

@m0rpk @firefoxwebdevs quite honestly, you're off the mark, **a lot**.
A browser with a built-in translator is a door opener for the open web for so many people that don't read English well enough to benefit from the dominant corpus of technological, cultural and scientific websites.
Firefox could indeed remove that functionality and instead of letting people translate websites on their phone make them use the google translate app that directly. Congrats on how you've advocated for the open web.

@flxtr @firefoxwebdevs as someone who used these in the early 2000s: no, it's not. It's not as good as DeepL, but it's worlds ahead of machine translation in the 2000s.

@firefoxwebdevs @joepie91 i'm a "tech folk". Just give us a version of firefox with zero AI. Translation can either be an extension or not there. We ask of you to supply a base for broSing the web, the rest is what the community delivers.

We won't ask you to integrate ad blockers, but we have them.
We won't ask you to integrate quick procy switchers, but we have them.

Stop the feature creep and go back to the roots, make a very good browser with extension support and let people make the rest.

@angelfeast @twifkak No, I don't think so. It says this (with a takedown compliance process posted afterward)...

License

These data are released under this licensing scheme: PD

We do not own any of the text from which these data has been extracted.
We license the actual packaging of these parallel data under the Creative Commons CC0 license ("no rights reserved").

@firefoxwebdevs you came up with the "killswitch" as if it was opt-in (it's *clearly* opt-out!), you put translate and llm-stuff into one box, *you* are the ones engaging in worst faith. why don't you go ahead and ask us why we're punching ourselves?

@liquor_american @wes @firefoxwebdevs This is super reductive. There is not some canonical definition of "web browser".

@tasket

"Meanwhile, Red Hat is quietly undermining any legal basis for copyleft and leaning into the idea that gratis products (Fedora) shouldn't have robust & transparent system update tools."

it's a bit off topic, but would you mind elaborating more about the system update tools? i'm out of the loop on that, and it sounds concerning

@malte there will be granular options for this stuff. The question is about the non-granular "kill switch".

@dante seems like a valid question to me. I mean it's literally a different tool than prompted genAI, and the definition of "AI" keeps shifting.

@firefoxwebdevs

I chose “No”. I find the translation feature very useful and greatly appreciate that is is local.

I do however think the local translate functionality should have an enable/disable switch right next to the AI enable/disable switch along with a brief and expanded description of functionality and locality of the feature.

@firefoxwebdevs nobody wants any of it.

The machine learning, the LLM, the translations, the "open model", the "open data" the open model uses, the kill switch, none.

I've use firefox since 2005 maybe 2006, even spent about 8 hours compiling it on my laptop to have it.

I've keept using your software despite its many flaws because you provided something.
You putting AI is taking the one advantage that justified using firefox over the alternatives.

Just to name a few flaws:
* In the last 20 years I've not managed to make firefox keep 2 dictionaries installed and working as expected over time.

* I'm having to download firefox focus from your FTP because you don't seem to want to have it available outside of the play store.
Why don't you maintain a f-droid repo for it?

* Where is USB midi support? Where is most of the USB support?
So much stuff we have to use chrome for.

* Why do you hate people restoring tabs?
Why move the lines to restore the tabs and delete said tabs next to each other?

The AI push in your software makes none of the effort of using firefox worth it.

@joepie91 I think a lot of people in the replies would consider this sneaky. It's a tricky UX problem. But yes, granular control needs to be part of the solution, along with a kill switch.

@firefoxwebdevs you can't cherry-pick yourself out of your general bad faith engagement.

@m I agree the folks I'm polling here do not represent the average user, but in this case I'm specifically interested in the thoughts of those who really dislike 'AI', and I think I've reached them

@tedmielczarek @wes @firefoxwebdevs Yes, this is what the marketers keep trying to convince us of.