I mean, let's be real, what major function has Mozilla implemented into Firefox that hasn't been opt-out? And no, UI doesn't count, I'm talking features.
The problem isn't the existence of AI. The problem is the inescapably of it and how, under Microsoft or Google, it will harvest your data whether you like it or not. When you tell them "fuck off, leave me alone, and keep my words out of your AI's mouth", they're not going to listen. Profit motive requires them to invade.
Mozilla is a non-profit, and they've long been very good about letting you opt out things, and listening. I'm not worried about them putting AI into Firefox, because I can be reasonably sure it will be optional, in a way I know the others won't.
I'd rather they didn't go chasing this car at all, to be honest, because they're not likely to catch it, but whatever. They're renewing focus on the browser and I'm taking that as a win.
I can't contest the first point cause I'm not a firefox junkie, so I won't.
What I will contest is that the existence of AI, or, deep learning, or LLMs, or neural networks, or matrix multiplication, or whatever type of shit they come up with next, I'll contest that it isn't problematic. I kind of think it is, inherently, I think it's existence is not great. Mostly because it obfuscates, even internally, the processing of data, it obfuscates the inputs from the outputs, the works from the results. You can do that with regular programming just fine, just as you can do most of the shit that AI does with normal programming, like that guy who made a program that calculates the prices for japanese baked goods and also recognizes cancer, right. But I think AI is a step further than that, it obfuscates it more. I kind of am skeptical of it's broad implementation.
For trivial use cases, it's kind of fine, but I think maybe use cases we might consider trivial, otherwise are kind of fucked, maybe. AI summary of an article? I dunno if that's good. We might think, oh, this is kind of trivial because the user should just not really trust what the AI says, but, as with all technology, what if the user is an idiot and a moron? They might just use it to read the article for them, and then spout off whatever talking points and headlines it gives them. I can't really think of a scenario where that's actually a good thing, and it's highly possible. It might make it easier to parse an article, like that, but I don't think that's actually a good or useful tool, it's just presented a kind of illusion of utility, most especially because it was redundant (we could just write a summary and have it at the top of the article, like every article on the face of the earth), and it was totally beyond our control, at least, in most circumstances.
Also, the Mozilla Foundation is nonprofit, but the Mozilla Corporation is not. The Foundation manages the Corp, which manages Firefox development. So depending on which one you're referring to, it might be a non-profit, or it might not be. In any case, the nonprofit is a step removed from Firefox development, which I think is an important side-note, even if it's not actually that relevant to whatever conversations about AI there might be.
Perhaps, comically, it is the perfect representation of the world as it is now: “knowledge” in people’s brains is created by consuming whatever source aligns with the beliefs that they think are theirs. No source or facts are required. Only the interpretation matters.
A TechCrunch report has a company memo that followed these layoffs, detailing one product shutdown and a "scaling back" of a few others.
reads the very top of the page; it then goes on to detail a lot of projects that aren't in line with Mozilla's core work of making a browser.
These non-browser projects could be seen as a search for a less vulnerable revenue stream, but none have put a huge dent in the bottom line.
TechCrunch managed to get an internal company memo that details a few "strategic corrections" for the myriad Mozilla products.
Mozilla seized an opportunity to bring trustworthy AI into Firefox, largely driven by the Fakespot acquisition and the product integration work that followed.
Mozilla paid an undisclosed sum in 2023 to buy a company called Fakespot, which uses AI to identify fake product reviews.
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