this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2024
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Firefox

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[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 26 points 2 months ago (3 children)

People hate the term AI and so Mozilla were always going to struggle with providing modern functionality, as let's face it, the Internet is embracing AI whether we like it or not

There's AI in many forms in Firefox such as how it predicts the page you want to revisit from the address bar and translates content locally on device. If these AI capabilities were moved to extensions, it would probably significantly reduce the benefit users get from Firefox and likely prevent other useful features such as privacy preserving AI alternatives.

This is poignant. AI as we know it is basically what we were calling machine learning a couple years ago. The same people that are very vocally complaining about the advent of a smarter browser, are the same people that bemoan Mozilla for depending on Google for financing. Somehow they want a browser that only the most devout privacy evangelists would use and they want a browser that is self-sustained through diverse deals, none of which they're able to see or feel.

I feel like there's a lot of disingenuous Firefox supporters who want a utopia browser and refuse to allow Mozilla to do anything to evolve the browser. These same people talk up all the Firefox forks and that change a few defaults and yet bemoan everything Mozilla does that makes those forks possible. It's boring.

  • I want a browser with on device translations.
  • I want a browser with smart page suggestions.
  • I want a browser that's able to summarise articles.
  • I want a browser that can fact-check pages.
[–] meatlotion@mas.erb.pw 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

@sabreW4K3 why don't you fork Firefox to do all those unnecessary for everyone else things? Firefox needs to stay unbloated, unAI'd, and most importantly sincere to it's original intents.

"I want a browser that can fact-check pages" 🤣 AI cannot fact check itself let alone anything else. Why don't you do your own fact checking?

My £0.02

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

cannot fact check itself let alone anything else. Why don't you do your own fact checking?

Why don't I render my own CSS? Firefox has the ability to pull alternative sources in the background and compare against my current page. What is wrong with that?

[–] Railcar8095@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's... Challenging. Like the pet eating thing, there are many sources saying it's true and many saying it's false. Official sources can lie (Russia came to mind for no reason whatsoever), so we rely on sources we already trust, which is tricky and even subjective.

I imagine that "if in Fox then False" is a good start, but aside from that I can only think it getting extra sources, also a challenge without real time web crawling of the internet, were google and Microsoft are already light years ahead.

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

But if Mozilla can, for example create a sources list and even charge for the ability to be a default on said sources list, wouldn't that be a double win? The problem with things being unreliable can be dealt with via language. Like big red text saying don't trust this blindly.

[–] Railcar8095@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Pay to be the "truth" on a fact checking tool? Fox news is very interested.

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 1 points 2 months ago

Aren't Google and Bing and others paying to be featured in Firefox. What's the difference?

[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

the Internet is embracing AI whether we like it or not

And if not, the feature gets removed again in a year or so. So far it doesn't really seem like it's in your face or anything, so 🤷

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

But the problem is, people think that there's one single development team working on Firefox and if they're working on AI, they're not improving or working on anything else.

[–] Railcar8095@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

As a data scientist, trust me: you don't want us developing ANYTHING else. You guys dogged a bullet having us busy.

[–] kbal@fedia.io 3 points 2 months ago
  • I want a browser that can fact-check web pages
  • I want a browser that can keep track of my cryptocurrency investments
  • I want a browser that can monitor the market for Beanie Babies
  • I want a browser with a built-in Pokemon Go panel
  • I want a browser that can detect when I'm about to post cringe
  • I want a browser with tail fins and shag carpeting

Come on Mozilla, make it happen! As an added bonus, all that added UI cruft will probably mean new places to show advertising at the users.