this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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103
What’s next for Mozilla? (techcrunch.com)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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one passage of note:

Where does all of this leave the Firefox browser. Surman argued that the organization is very judicious about rolling AI into the browser — but he also believes that AI will become part of everything Mozilla does. “We want to implement AI in a way that’s trustworthy and benefits people,” he said. Fakespot is one example of this, but the overall vision is larger. “I think that’s what you’ll see from us, over the course of the next year, is how do you use the browser as the thing that represents you and how do you build AI into the browser that’s basically on your side as you move through the internet?” He noted that an Edge-like chatbot in a sidebar could be one way of doing this, but he seems to be thinking more in terms of an assistant that helps you summarize articles and maybe notify you proactively. “I think you’ll see the browser evolve. In our case, that’s to be more protective of you and more helpful to you. I think it’s more that you use the predictive and synthesizing capabilities of those tools to make it easier and safer to move through the internet.”

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 10 months ago (2 children)

What an absolute shitshow this is going to be. If I want a digital assistant, I'll get one. Keeping concerns separate is what has always worked. This reads like Elon wanting X to be the "everything app". That ship has already sailed. The web is the everything app. Back when the web was new, you had AOL and Yahoo wanting to be the "gateway" to everything. How did that work out? My gateway to everything is my bookmarks folder. I don't want AI in anything I use locally unless I explicitly enable it and ask for assistance. IMHO, this is the reason so many digital assistants have failed (especially Microsoft's); because they tried to anticipate your needs rather than STFU and stay out of the way.

I'm old.

/rant

[–] [email protected] 36 points 10 months ago (3 children)

My feeling is that AI is the new solution looking for too many problems to solve. I had the same feeling with microservices, big data, block chain, NoSQL databases and all those other hype driven development things. Different products and solutions exist to solve their respective problems. I notice that AI (notably since ChatGPT and related) are pushed in all directions.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

I'm absolutely with you. Having run face-first into MongoDB more than once, I finally learned not to trust the hype around these things.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

How else would we know what niche to exploit with it other than brute forcing it into everything!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Could we have an AI do the brute forcing?... /s

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The Gartner hype cycle strikes again.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Isn't Firefox generally quite good at letting you turn off features you don't want?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

That's not my problem personally. It's that they're wasting time on stuff like this when they could be spending it on enhancing their browser in other ways

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

Say it with me now: local AI, local AI... or fuck off.

That being said, ARM laptops and probably even workstations are the future, and so is RISC-V. I suspect we'll see more tensor cores or AI related processing built-in to the SoC's.

If it's then only a question of hardware enablement and a software companion to go along with it, I'm all for it.

Go Mozilla...! But again: local AI, or fuck off.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

The use local models for Firefox Translations so I would expect they would do something similar

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

I mean, so far their most recent attempt at AI is a local AI based on PrivateGPT called MemoryCache.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I've been hopeful for an external hardware device, something akin to MythicAI's analog hardware. It essentially offloads the heavy duty work done by the GPU, with far lower power consumption and about 98-99% accuracy, then sends the output data back to the computer to be digitized. Adding more tensor cores is just making more power consumption which is already an issue.

That company in particular was using this method for real time AI tracking in cameras but I feel like it could be easily adapted to effectively eliminate the work in AI that NVIDIA is doing for GPU's. Why brute force AI with power and tensor cores when a couple wires and some voltage can sift through the same or larger models at the same.or faster speeds with, well okay about 98-99% accuracy. It could be a simple hardware attachment via PCIe or hell even USB with a small bottleneck for conversion times. I just used an app to upscale a photo locally on my phone, took about 14m (Xperia 1IV), I could easily have offloaded that work to an analog AI device. We are nearly to the point where we can just run "AI*" on a phone at nearly PC speeds.

All this to say - local AI indeed. The only way AI works is when everyone has access to it. Give full, free access to everybody and the fear of corporate interference drops drastically. There are plenty of models available online not made by Google or Microsoft pushing whatever or harvesting data back (remember to firewall your programs if you run them locally). Ideally tagsets could be open sourced but in the capitalist world I could also see independent artists selling models of their work under a license

/* Of course, AI as a broad spectrum term encompassing model based projects, LLM's for assistants & generative imaging, and not the actual AI as a semi-autonomous intelligence

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Neuromorphic hardware seems to be best suited as an extension of RAM storage. It doesn't need to use the DAC/ADC approach of Mythic AI, some versions are compatible with a CMOS process, and could be either integrated directly into the processor, maybe as an extension of the cache or a dedicated neural processing module, or into RAM modules.

It's pretty clear that current NN processing solutions, by repurposing existing hardware, are bound to get replaced by dedicated hardware with a fraction of the power requirements and orders of magnitude larger processing capabilities.

Once some popular use cases for large NNs have been successfully proven, we can expect future hardware to come with support for them, so it also makes sense to make plans for software that can use them. And yes, local AI... and possibly trainable locally.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Oh yeah Intel's version of that was looking promising too.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

The vast majority of consumer devices, both mobile and laptops/desktops, are not powerful enough to run local AI with a good user experience yet, and even if they were, a lot of users would still prefer having it run in the cloud rather than using up their phone battery

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Local by default, option to go remote. Even the privacy-first types might want to offload that to a more powerful local machine.

They could even sell access to a Mozilla provided AI server like they do with the VPN service.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 10 months ago

Yes, an ai assistant is that all it needs. And higher salaries to the c suite please. Also it needs to remove feature and ignore user requests

[–] [email protected] 33 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

It's kinda crazy to me how hate-filled Lemmy is just a half-year after I joined (when it felt like a breath of fresh air after deleting my Reddit account), especially for Mozilla. Mozilla has issues, but it's nothing they can't fix or come out of. They don't deserve to die. And all the conspiracy theories I'm reading is just nonsense. I happen to be a Firefox user, but really it's mainly because Google decided to screw with user choice (i.e. Manifest v3). Firefox is still FOSS, and it's still giving plenty of user choice.

And all this AI talk is just bandwagoning by every corporation because if AI (as in LLM and whatnot) happens to be a baseline thing for many corporations, Mozilla not implementing it could backfire for them, so while it is bandwagoning, it also makes sense to hedge one's bets on it.

I, for one, think this current notion of AI is too raw to take any real shape (outside of the current novelty), and these corps that are jumping on it, just like they did with "web 2.0" and "big data" and "the cloud" and "blockchain", will eventually find that while there is some tangibility to be found, it will take many years to solidify into products that make sense for a consumer.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Yeah and AI is pretty useful for doing certain things. For example my pixel can turn on subtitles for any video or audio playing and even translate it for me on the fly. AI isnt blockchain and it isnt all chatgtp or making images with too many fingers. People are talking about improving web standards as if whatever ai stuff google,MS, and apple are cooking up wont be used in order to enhance various web features.

Likewise firefox is currently a good browser and does keep up for the most part. I'd understand the criticisms if firefox was suck in 2009, but modern day firefox is fast and works well and they will likely continue keeping up with standards while an independent team works on the open source AI stuff

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Yep, exactly. Firefox does what it sets out to do -- be a FOSS alternative to the ever-growing corporate browser market, providing user choice and useful features.

And I agree that AI as both a concept and implementation in its various types and forms will continue to be iterated upon and will continue to show numerous useful applications. I only hesitate that what is being called AI at this moment as being some kind of groundbreaking thing that changes the world, like corporations seem to be making it out as (hence the bandwagon to try to cash in on it).

It may very well change the world in the near future, but it's not quite there yet. It is novel, and it is cool what ChatGPT and other applications can do, such as the example you gave, and that does have a very tangible quality to it. I feel that any fast-moving technological pace must be met with trust and with objective science every step of the way, and the likes of ChatGPT and other AI models have quite a ways to go -- especially concerning trust.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I personally just don't like people calling it AI. It's not.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I happen to be a Firefox user

I happen to be a former conkeror user, which was based on XULRunner, which Mozilla dropped, just like other ways to use their engine for other browsers.

But I could use pre-Australis Firefox.

Only then their experiments on people with UI design happened.

And yes, Mozilla as an organization has objective flaws. Their treatment of the SeaMonkey project (now separate) has not been good as well.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I am worried about the direction of Mozilla, it VERY FUCKING MUCH needs to invest on the browser instead of wasting time on "AI"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The conspiracy theory I've heard is that Mozilla is basically paid opposition to Google. Their leadership is being paid (by Google) to run Firefox into the ground without actually going out of business.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Half plausible, but honestly I'm more inclined to lean into Occam's Razor and believe there's no conspiracy and the CEO just got AI mind worms, which is an epidemic right now

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Whats wrong with firefox currently?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Their CEO is the biggest symptom of their problem. She demands a sky high compensation despite her poor leadership. The company has been in a spiraling decline for the past decade now. Instead of focusing on bringing a great user experience, they alienated their most staunch users with things like Pocket and allowed PWAs and Electron to eat their lunch.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Let's face it, we lost the fun, early web long time ago. It was all taken over by corporations and when Mozilla dies (and that's not if) they will finish locking it up and the only way to browse it will be by using official, ad filled tools. Best thing we can do is to prepare ourselves for the world without web (www?). We'll still have apps and communicators and of course will still use websites at work but the days of 'browsing' will soon (well, hopefully not very soon) be over.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Higher exec salaries.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Pretty much.. Mitchell baker gets paid 7 million.

That being said though, just to play devils advocate, she was there since the beginning apparently (at Netscape). So, she actually seems to somewhat deserve it. And she's well educated too and I get the impression she's also a good person too

Whereas, you look at the Oracle CEO, and she's what you expect (donates a lot of money to the right wing, banker, etc)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Man, I forgot how much I hated Oracle. Thanks for reminding me!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

You're welcome.

By the way, not sure if you're a linux user, but if you were wondering why Redhat is locking down the source code a bit, its probably thanks to oracle too. Oracle Unbreakable Linux was basically just a rebrand of Redhat (I'm guessing they just charge less for support to undercut redhat). It's not because Redhat are bad for the community or greedy, but because they can't compete if Oracle screws them that way

So Oracle is also screwing over Linux now too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

To be fair, there are (or were) lots of distros downstream of RHEL marketing themselves as drop-in replacements, not just Oracle. And this move isn't likely to stop Oracle (and the rest), only make the transition experience less smooth for clients (ultimately all the downstream distros can just rebase off of CentOS Stream instead; they lose "bug for bug" compatibility, but will still largely be drop-in replacements).

I also find it hard to muster any sympathy for IBM of all people, even when their opponent is Oracle (who are the lowest of the low).

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago

I can definitely get behind an AI plugin that reliably rats out AI generated content; i will love that in my browser (as long as it, sigh, is not a privacy nightmare). But all the "be smart for me" digital assistants can go eff themselves. I don't even use auto mode on my camera.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Can we please focus on actual user experience?

Firefox is the only major browser without HDR support on Windows...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

I mean HDR support in Windows, at least in my anecdotal experience, is garbage, anyway. But I agree, that doesn't mean the browser shouldn't support it by now.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Hopefully a new CEO with better vision and ability to execute. Mozilla’s leadership is a joke.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

One of the few remaining browsers in 2024 that does not support profile switching (and no, a debug about:profiles page does not count as supporting profile switching), and sure, AI is absolutely what it needs right now to become relevant. /s

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Are you talking about this? Because it exists since ~2016

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Unfortunately not, that doesn't meet the needs for either a different user, or a completely different use case. For example, I want to completely separate my work profile with a set of extensions, and my personal profile with a completely different theme and set of extensions. In most other browsers you simply click on your profile picture and choose "Switch Profiles" or something. Not Firefox nor its derivatives.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Firefox has a profile manager (the thing that's also exposed to about:profiles). Run it like firefox -profilemanager and you'll get a profile switcher.

Run firefox -profilemanager -no-remote if you want to open multiple different profiles at once (only the original one without "no-remote" will open new tabs when you click on links outside the browser). You'll probably want to make a shortcut for different profiles though, not sure from memory what it is (but probably -profile ProfileName) and then you can easily use profiles.

The support is actually pretty decent, just kinda hidden. You don't get a profile switcher because the browsers are completely separate, they don't really know about each other.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

-P works, -profile probably does as well

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Can I get a browser that would automatically filter out AI generated content? That would be a killer feature!!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Bro, Mozilla needs to die. They don't deserve all the money they are getting.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Yes, let's let Google have complete control over the web, that will show them!

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago

Literally the worst take I've heard all day

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

what does that creative commons license have to do with Firefox?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

Click here to see the summaryOver the last few years, Mozilla also started making startup investments, including into Mastodon’s client Mammoth, for example, and acquired Fakespot, a website and browser extension that helps users identify fake reviews.

Indeed, when Mozilla launched its annual report a few weeks ago, it also used that moment to add a number of new members to its board — the majority of which focus on AI.

Surman told me that the leadership team had been planning these efforts for almost a year, but as public interest in AI grew, he “pushed it out of the door.” But then Draief pretty much moved it right back into stealth mode to focus on what to do next.

Surman believes that no matter the details of that, though, the overall principles of transparency and freedom to study the code, modify it and redistribute it will remain key.

The licenses aren’t perfect and we are going to do a bunch of work in the first half of next year with some of the other open source projects around clarifying some of those definitions and giving people some mental models.”

Then, he noted, when the smartphone arrived, there were a few smaller projects that aimed to create alternatives, including Mozilla (and at its core, Android is obviously also open source, even as Google and others have built walled gardens around the actual user experience).

Saved 82% of original text.

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