Comment on Firefox dev clarifies that AI features will be 'opt-in' and there will be a 'killswitch' to disable them

natecox@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• Feyd@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I dunno that seems very compatible with

  AI should always be a choice — something people can easily turn off.

  Also here is a link to the posts mastodon.social/…/115740500373677782

  Also, the dev says the following and I think they have a point.

  I’m not asking for faith in our direction - the thing I love about the Firefox community is how open, honest, and technical it is.

  But I do ask that you don’t have the opposite of faith. Like, try not to be determined that we’re going to do the wrong thing here.

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  • TehPers@beehaw.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    try not to be determined that we’re going to do the wrong thing here.

    There’s a lot Mozilla has done right, but there’s a lot they haven’t done right as well. These days, the cynical view has proven itself to be more reliable in general, so it’s hard not to apply it here as well.

    That being said, FF has supported AI chatbots for a while and I haven’t seen it come up once in my browser beyond when they said “this is a thing now”. But this has also been a good opportunity to explore alternatives, so I’m trying out Zen now (ff-based still).

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  • natecox@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    “Can easily turn off” implies that it ships to you on.

    Honestly, asking us to assume that every action comes from a place of good will just makes me doubt them even more. You earn that kind of trust, you don’t ask for it; and if they don’t have it they should be asking hard questions about why.

    They are a company that used to be about independent choice but are effectively reliant on Google (a privacy nightmare) to be solvent, and they’re now putting their bets into being “a modern AI browser”. Nothing about that tells me I should just trust them.

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  • MotoAsh@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Something easily turned off is distinctly not opt in. They’re still lying to everyone.

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• leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Changes course swerves erratically before continuing in the same general direction.

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• theuniqueone@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Maybe but I although critical of some recent firefox actions think its possible given the og statement it is a clarification from a somewhat vague statement that was taken in the worst possible way by some and posted again and again often by people not even reading beyond the headline.

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