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

@chillicampari @firefoxwebdevs @joepie91 ️ The best thing you could do in Firefox is to completely remove the “AI” “features” that are built on the lie and contributing to the harm. The next best would be to move them to plugins that are not installed by default. The next best is the “kill switch”, but with “killed” as the default, and ideally, as you say, not a single switch but a set of them.
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@chillicampari @firefoxwebdevs @joepie91 ️ But that alone won’t be enough to rebuild trust; I’d like to suggest something that would help with that, but unfortunately that’s far outside my wheelhouse
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@hdv
"Make it a setting" sounds nice but no one considers the cost to users from having too many settings in UIs.

What a like about Firefox is people who really want to change all kinds of default behavior can do so through about:config and other means of altering those prefs.

The translation feature has been there for a while, is good for all the reasons you listed, and is fundamentally different from the LLMs, which are what people mean by "AI" today. Its pop-up panel already has a setting to stop it popping up any more and if someone doesn't even want to see the address bar icon, I'm sure there's something in about:config for that.

@firefoxwebdevs

@theorangetheme @davidgerard @theogrin @mdavis @firefoxwebdevs If Firefox isn't willing to cut out AI (fuck levers and knobs), then stop calling it Firefox.

Let the legacy of user trust and privacy end and stop lying to people. Mozilla is a company, the browser is a product, and you (Moz Org and Foundation) have no interest in consumer rights.

Mozilla's battlecry should be "Shut up, download the free browser, and let us watch everything you do." Because we're not your customers anymore. Stockholders and advertisers are.

Your next poll: How can (browser not Firefox) bring you ads and save you money when shopping?" That is what you want to ask, so do it.

@DrJosh9000 if they made it an easter egg loot box thing there are people who'd probably be racing to be the first to turn it on @firefoxwebdevs

@Tock @theorangetheme @theogrin @mdavis @firefoxwebdevs

countdown to:

1. more AI in Firefox
2. Mozilla drops Gecko in favour of Chromium
3. with all possibility of ad blocking disabled
4. certainty the massive international user base of people *just like them* will show up any day now! just you wait!!

@firefoxwebdevs
It's probably a good idea in general to let the AI killswitch disable all AI stuff (incl. future one) by default, but still allow the user to selectively re-enable features like translations (without having to use about:config)

@davidgerard @theorangetheme @theogrin @mdavis @firefoxwebdevs@mastodon.social Such a waste, too. Years of standards fighting, differentiation with Gecko, then Quantum (see? I WAS a follower all along!) and being a model of what Open Source stewardship could mean for the larger Internet.

RIP Mozilla, if you thought you were floundering as a Not for Profit Corp, you're worse than useless as a Marketing Agency.

@theorangetheme @davidgerard @theogrin @mdavis @firefoxwebdevs the whole c-level of mozilla looks sketchy af

thinking of it, firing every cis man and building up again from there wouldnt probably the worst move ‍️

@firefoxwebdevs Fireslop.

@firefoxwebdevs I really love the local on-device translation, "AI" or not.

I think this question follows a fundamental misunderstanding of the AI toggle. I want I do not want to ship off my browser data to any AI company (including Mozzila), and that would be the toggle I would look for.

If Firefox/Mozilla came out with a on-device local-only LLM I would personally be more receptive. The main issue for a browser is that it should be a browser, and also not ship all my data off for harvesting by AI slop companies.

@fasterandworse @davidgerard the browsers by design don’t want that extension, I don’t see a point in Mozilla forking chrome

@firefoxwebdevs maybe it shouldn't be an AI kill switch but instead a generative AI kill switch or an LLM kill switch.

@firefoxwebdevs
Translation is a useful service and not really in scope for the kill switch IMO, though judging by the extremely spicy discussion here, option two might be the ideal choice

@mdavis @firefoxwebdevs

> what if the developers used AI to help develop the code in the browser itself?

Then the slop in the browser itself should not be trusted.

@eckes @fasterandworse I don't see a point in the AI shit and the CEO has already floated blocking adblockers, so here we are

@firefoxwebdevs the "no AI" kill switch should turn off every feature based on machine learning, and list them. The list should contain specific, simple, trustworthy (verifiable) documentation about specifically which ML tech underpins the feature; how the training corpora were gathered (from whom, and with what consent); how and who vetted the model inputs; and the energy costs/environmental impacts of keeping the models up to date.

This is an opportunity to empower and to educate.

@firefoxwebdevs

Honestly, just remove and keep AI out of Firefox entirely, also please just stop the AI Slop enshitification.

@firefoxwebdevs rather than mess about with kill switches for a product most people don't want, strip all that AI crap out of the browser and make extensions that integrate with various LLM models so those who do want it can add it but don't force this slop on everyone by default

I've been a FF user since the beta days and have now switched to Librewolf because of the AI and ad tech bloat in FF

It makes me sad to see FF decline in this way & become another AI bloated browser

@m0rpk @firefoxwebdevs
Can Firefox devs put up a Yes/No poll on whether they should just make a web browser? My vote is Yes.