Share your feedback on the AI services experiment in Nightly

[asafko]

Hi folks, 

In the next few days, we will start the Nightly experiment which provides easy access to AI services from the sidebar. This functionality is entirely optional, and it’s there to see if it’s a helpful addition to Firefox. It is not built into any core functionality and needs to be turned on by you to see it. 

If you want to try the experiment, activate it via Nightly Settings > Firefox Labs (please see full instructions here). 

We’d love to hear your feedback once you try out the feature, and we’re open to all your ideas and thoughts, whether it’s small tweaks to the current experience or big, creative suggestions that could boost your productivity and make accessing your favorite tools and services in Firefox even easier.

Thanks so much for helping us improve Firefox!

[Cobwebs]

Please don't.  AI is less than worthless.  Associating with it beclowns yourself.

[jahtnamas]

i figured it out, y'all— mozilla's trying to make the firefox icon real by using its flagship browser to set the planet on fire! i get it now!

but for real, do not do this. i absolutely despise when an organization backpedals on their core values and the disappointment in such acts compounds nigh-daily now. how does anyone in the tech sector sleep soundly at night anymore? (...oh, right. money.)

[wyatt8740]

I did not consent to any of these companies scraping my website, nor do I think a browser an appropriate place for a stupid chatbot that boils oceans without doing anything particularly productive.

Please stop cramming """"AI"""" and other "features" no one wants into anything with a pulse and maybe start listening to people before introducing them.

[clskiva]

No AI ensh*ttification in Firefox please

[Xolok]

Simply, I have yet to see the web browsing experience be improved for me through AI. It has been beneficial to companies building a LLM or selling data though. If Mozilla or someone else wants to give me $50,000/yr to use their browser with this feature that benefits them, not me, I will consider it.

[hope]

how about hell no

[YPAP2205]

While I don't mind this feature, I feel like there needs to be some changes to respect those who don't want AI in their browser. Firstly, make it opt-in or easy to enable for those who want it. Although, it is pretty easy to enable/disable in the sidebar settings. A lot of people here are suggesting this, and I can agree with this. Secondly, allow users to add/remove models, since users might want to add their own AI models of choice. In my case, I am using ollama with openwebui and I had to change it manually in about:config. Which, some users might not want to risk changing settings in about:config to prevent themselves from ruining their browser.

But there are some things I disagree with the people who don't want this feature. I understand that they don't want AI in their browser, and they want more privacy. In fact, I didn't like AI when ChatGPT came out, and only tried it after half a year. I still prefer to not use AI for everything, as I knew from the very beginning that it's not perfect. I initially was also kind of against this feature, because I am kinda tired of AI being almost everywhere. However, the chatbot doesn't seem to waste system resources. The AI chatbot is pretty much like the sidebar apps that are seen in other browsers like Edge and Opera. Although, I can agree that it should've been extension by Mozilla instead of being built right into the browser. While I try not to have too many extensions on my browser, I feel like this would've been more acceptable as an extension rather than a native feature.

[Lycanbutch]

Hell NO!! keep ai away from everything. This AI “trend” needs to die, not get resurrected at every moment.

[Ranlvor]

Can we please get a version of firefox without the AI-Bull**bleep**? I do understand that you need to include stuff like pocket to make money but I doubt that you got much money for that thing.

Some of your users do not want to have any AI related code on their systems.

[Selulu]

Please don't do this. Don't ruin the last good internet browser with AI garbage.

[robotbirdhead]

This sucks, you guys are supposed to be better than this trend hopping garbage.

[Frikisada]

I think it'd be great to have a version that uses absolutely no AI chatbot. A version of Firefox that doesn't have the option at all.

[JDalton]

Please don’t. You’ve been the most reliable web browser for years, why would you jump on the bandwagon for the technology that’s destroying the usability of the internet? You’re doing the worst possible thing for your brand credibility. This is akin to Kickstarter (successful only because it was the reliable way to pre-pay for products through secure means) jumping on crypto. Which it never did in the end, because it would have destroyed their brand credibility.

[denniskdraws]

No. No. No. A thousand times no. Keep this AI bull**bleep** out of Firefox. God almight you'd think Mozilla of all folks would be able to read the room on this. Burn everything AI related at your company to the ground.

[BlueRonado]

Kindly, did not add this. We don't any sort of AI within the browser. Thank you

[SN92]

I'm not interested. Official implementation of this will make me stop actively recommending Mozilla.

[Castor]

What the hell??? How do you look at everything happening around AI —the environmental cost, the incredibly bad and dangerous results it gives, the public outcry from artists, creators, and basically anyone with enough common sense and knowledge on the situation— and still decide "yeah i'll implement that"? Whoever came up with the idea is only second in terms of stupidity to who ever decided to actually go through with it.

No one wants that. Some people /may/ think they want it, but they have simply fallen for the lies of tech  bros out there trying really hard to make it seem like AI is actually intelligent (it is not).

Mozilla Firefox is one of the only good alternatives to chromium, I love it, I love how you guys have been working to protect our privacy. Don't do this to us now, this is such a stupid decision, it will only make everything worse. Come on.

[daisical]

I say this with full honesty- no ai itergration please.

Mozilla is great as is. While there are many, the two main reasons why I switched to Firefox are;

• No ai
• Didn't bog down my computer

Google Chrome as well as its company has continually degraded with time , with ruining its own search engine with ads rather than requested results, eating up storage space , and spying/training off its users. Never mind the constant changing tos.

But the final straw was the ai pushing-the GENERATIVE AI push for half hazard features rushed out to meet some arbitrary deadline. Google actually worked BETTER without its "ai integration." Gemini is terrible. Telling people to stick glue in sauce- this thing is tested! Its not safety-proofed! Then there's Bing,a giant turn off in general made worse with its own ai stuff. Duck duck go keeps turning its ai features on even when I turn them off manually! And no, I don't need Firefox to try and do better with that because I DON'T WANT AI FEATUES. Where am I supposed to go after this?

no amount of "its the future" can put down how bad this tech is most times. Aging is in the future, doesn't make it a good thing.

I'm just sick and tired of Ai. Its exhausting, I have ai fatigue. Its been shoved in my face in every aspect of life and advertising for months now.  Almost every company is trying to cram it into their systems because its some trend. (Badly , I might add.)but I've seen the tech, I know how it works- its stuff we've already had except its more cumbersome and wastes more water.

I was actually, genuinely enjoying Mozilla Firefox and would like to continue to- without the ai tech. And I hope and pray I continue to do so. Because I'm tired.

[MageBunkshelf]

Absolutely not, AI rubbish has no business being baked into the browser itself.

Firefox's primary advantage is that it's not Google. By bandwagon-hopping onto the new corporate hotness despite the rampant plagiarism, the disinformation it produces, the absurd energy cost of these useless machines no one besides corporates want, and the general en****ification of the internet that AI slop is accelerating, you erode trust in Firefox and in Mozilla as an entity.

No one wants it, it offers no worthwhile benefit, it costs an absurd amount of energy for it to just churn out utter slop, and it's only being pushed in everyone's faces because businesses don't want to lose the money they bet on their new toy being "the future". If Mozilla is going the way of Google then what is the point of it existing?

Keep this rubbish out of Firefox, the cost of trust is not worth a year or two of "well we missed out on NFTs but maybe THIS one!" Shoving the plagiarism machine into Firefox is completely antithetical to why people favour Firefox in the first place.

[digitrev]

Jumping in on the "please for the love of god don't" train. I deal with enough of this nonsense at work, I don't need it built directly into my browsers. I will find an alternative browser if you go down this route.

[8bitorne]

Firefox is already a system resource guzzling nightmare, now you want to make it even worse so it can learn to lie?

[JessicaCantlope]

No.

[Jake4480]

No thank you. No one wants this stuff. Take it out and be a hero.

[Mivlya]

Don't put the pipe dream, energy wasting, buzzword, plagiarism laundering, worthless **bleep** on firefox. I use firefox because it's the least abusive browser. Don't do this bull**bleep**.

[deepshock]

This absolutely isn't the right idea. Generative AI is extremely inaccurate nearly all of the time, and disproportionately energy intensive. In most cases it fails to do things that have already been done well without it. Most notably, it depends almost completely on scraping the data of others without consent. This is not the direction Firefox, Mozilla, anything should be going in.

[loreliaod]

I do not want this, I have zero interest in using AI features and zero interest in supporting companies that are buying into the hype. All you have to do is take a look around to see that AI is causing legal issues and costing more than it's helping. There is currently no ethical LLMs and I have a suspicion there never will be. Please, either back off, wait, or admit you don't care about the ethical side LLMs.

[EarlMardle]

It's not just about the AI, which "no"

It's a very deep concern about the standard of decision-making at Mozilla that you would even give house room to the idiocy around AI

What other decisions are you making about FF with processes as broken, and frankly stupid, as that one?

[ezekielbones]

this. to me jumping on the "AI" bandwagon indicates a lack of good sense and customer focus

[Bluman00]

Please no.  Don’t want.  Burn AI with fire.  

[snorful]

Please don't, this would be utterly useless, and harmful to privacy.

[wooda99]

Please do not use AI services for Firefox. I do not see how it would benefit you, and it certainly wouldn't benefit your users.

Frankly, describing yourself as "AI-Free" would be a good advertisement, given the insistence on other companies shoving this garbage everywhere.

[mwiser]

I will switch to another browser if you force this on us.

[kbneal]

Oh for the love of god can you just not.

[vani]

Nice way to kill the browser and make it even LESS optimal to most machines. Is there anything the user is TRULY going to benefit with any of those additions? Or is this addition that literally no one asked for, just to appease to whatever weird AI company is probably giving you guys money?

[Stonehippo]

Please don't do this. There's not a lot I want from a browse beyond competent loading of web pages. I don't need a lot of "advanced" ML or automation in the browser I use. Don't bloat Firefox with features we don't need. 

[yesmissjane]

noooooooooooooooo! please do not further enable the plagiarism/eco disaster machine!!!

[Lielac]

Please don't.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5

[ezekielbones]

I just installed the firefox web browser after more than a half a decade of not using it. if you add AI cludge, even optionally, I will uninstall it. If all you're offering is the same useless, wasteful, creepy, "AI" bullsh*t as the bigger web browsers I might as well just go with them.

[amyers]

Please read the room 

[nkh]

I have strong negative feelings towards this feature, and based on the replies to this post, it seems many others share similar feelings.

I believe that Mozilla tries to act in the best interest of its users, so you must have a good reason for this addition. So, I'd like to know the reason that you're working on it. Specifically, there are two estimates I want to know:
What is the percent of current users who want this feature?
How many users will Firefox gain over some period of time because of this feature?
I realize that the sample of the Firefox community that interacted with this post is not a random one and is probably biased, so I have no idea what these figures may be, but I assume you do.

For people who value their privacy and want to chat with an LLM can already use DuckDuckGo AI Chat. I say this because it seems to me like you're re-inventing the wheel (but making a worse one!) with this feature.

Furthermore, this seems out-of-scope for a browser.

I'd have to switch browsers if I couldn't disable it completely, so please keep it opt-in or at the very least opt-out, because I love Firefox and I don't want to switch.