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

@mkljczk @firefoxwebdevs yeah, ditch "AI" nonsense and just say what the bloody tech is

@mdavis it's definitely a complicated topic! I guess it's down to us to figure out a model that best serves most people, while providing options to cover the rest.

@tasket @angelfeast It's not clear to me that I'm looking at the right place. Is this the data being used by Mozilla? I'm hoping that could be resolved by more than the 10 minutes of research I spent on it. I'd like even more for it to require much less research to understand the supply chain of a product offered as a public service. I've also got lots of reasons not to give them the benefit of the doubt here.

@flxtr
I use it daily and in general it's good enough to understand an article content without having to use an online translator. I love this feature!
@firefoxwebdevs

@funkylab Mozilla only have to make that functionality possible to add via a plugin for people who want it. That way user choice, accessible web translation, and separation between core and optional browser functions and are all satisfied.

There is nothing to say Mozilla have to deliver that plugin - and nothing to stop them from doing so either. Or anyone else.

I'd argue that's how the open web should work. Not mandating optional behaviour within the browser itself.

@firefoxwebdevs

@mkljczk
Wdym? It's a translator, not a chatbot
@firefoxwebdevs

@firefoxwebdevs grow a pair and assert your products’s vision.

The loudest people are are unreasonable and do not understand what they actually want.

@firefoxwebdevs what exactly do you refer to as „open data”?

@m0rpk @firefoxwebdevs mozilla did deliver this as a plugin in the beginning. What's your point? "Don't make the web open, unless it's something that I approve?"

@firefoxwebdevs I don’t think you can make any assumptions then without granular switches that let the user control every facet. In which case, this kill switch is probably less a binary checkbox and more a slider or a series of discrete options. And as a Firefox and Thunderbird user, we are used to lots of toggles and switches under the hood, so I’m fine with that kind of control.

@funkylab @flxtr @firefoxwebdevs and by listening to these people it will *never* be good because they shit all over themselves if anyone uses an algorithm from 10s.

@m0rpk @firefoxwebdevs what exactly is bad about not delivering functionality that benefits basically everyone (my English, I claim, is fine, but I can't read a word of Japanese and Spanish is mostly guesswork; most humans read no more than 3 languages)? How exactly does it detract from Firefox being an enabler of the Open Web that they do, by default, enable the Open Web crosslingually?

@firefoxwebdevs then I think it comes down to- is translation specifically considered "AI" by your own definition (not personally your definition, how it is treated internally by Mozilla)?

If it is treated and handled as "AI" then yes, following the idea of including what is defined by Mozilla as "AI" into the "AI kill switch" it should be disabled when the "kill switch" is toggled.

@joepie91

@firefoxwebdevs "Without the user's request" is quite ambiguous, though. I'm reminded here of Google, which put the AI tab before the Web/All tab, displacing it so that people would unintentionally hit the AI button and "request" it. It's a small and plausibly-deniable change that nevertheless violates the user's boundaries, and difficult to call out and stop even internally within a company or team. I've seen many companies and software do the same thing.

A genuine opt-in would, in my opinion, look something like a single "hey do you want such-and-such features? these are the implications" question, presented in a non-misleading way, and if that is not answered affirmatively then the various UI elements for "AI" features should not even appear in the UI unless the user goes and changes this setting. It's much harder for that to get modified in questionable ways down the line, and reduces the 'opportunities for misclick' to a single one instead of "every time someone wants to click a button". It also means users aren't constantly pestered with whatever that week's new "AI" thing is if they've shown no interest.

Such a dialog could still specify something like "if you choose Yes, Firefox will still only download models once you try to use a feature", to make it clear to users that it's not an all-or-nothing, and they can still pick-and-choose after selecting 'Yes'.

@funkylab My point is that I'm Very. Tired. of every company trying to cram unwanted cruft into their products at the expense of core features.

Of course people should be able to translate webpages.

You may not have noticed from my tone but I was being somewhat hyperbolic for rhetorical effect.

@firefoxwebdevs

@jonathankoren @flxtr Don't get me wrong, I'm angry at @firefoxwebdevs for trying to press LLMs into places they don't need to go, and generally becoming complicit with commercialization (and "enshittification") of the web, but maybe, just maybe, let's actually criticize the things worth criticizing instead of going around dogpiling on Mozilla / Firefox developers at every corner.

@firefoxwebdevs start with the list of stuff that LibreWolf rips out?

@mdavis @firefoxwebdevs I do not want to use any product that has been developed using "AI" code generation tools, especially not if it is security critical software like a browser

@mcc @firefoxwebdevs I would mostly agree with this if you added this at the end of your statement: …by an idiot programmer or one who didn’t grow up and learn to code properly during the decades before AI LLMs.

In reality, I don’t think either of us are going to get our way on this one.

@firefoxwebdevs

I would say every feature in everything should be a separate toggle to the best of its ability.

Also, by "open data", I hope you mean "the data's license gives consent to be used in this way", not "the data exists on the web somewhere".