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!

[Mardak]

There are many existing chatbot users, so could you agree that Firefox engaging with these people provides more opportunity to guide them to more open and better privacy models?

[ffffff]

Sorry, not the person you answered to, but could you elaborate on what you mean by "provides more opportunity" here? Do you mean that, by having people that use LLM chatbots use/switch to Firefox, Mozilla will have more influence over their web experience and will thus be able to provide them a generally more private option to interact with the internet than other browsers? Or perhaps, more literally, that Mozilla will have the opportunity to try "selling" these people on the concept of more open and private LLM models?

Theoretically, yes, engaging with specific tech might be the best way to affect how people interact with it. But I'm not sure if that's what would happen here, or at least that's not the only thing I believe would happen. It's likely Mozilla would also be steering many people who didn't use AI that much until then straight into the likes of OpenAI.

Even considering the following (assuming it reached stable in a similar state):

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.

There are surely many who would learn about this little option in their settings that gives them access to a cool copilot when browsing the web, and turn it on, because why wouldn't they—Firefox itself is offering. You can hardly call that a privacy enhancement in their lives. I'm also unconvinced that, given the choice between OpenAI's GPT-4o Mini or the latest and greatest open source model, average users would pick the latter—especially after testing both.

Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, but I'm trying to understand Mozilla's angle here, and I appreciate all help anyone can offer with this. Right now, it just sort of feels like Mozilla is implementing AI because that's what everyone is doing, and that's what you gotta do in 2024. This feature is simply letting people pick between multiple LLM options (mostly commercial), which is a respectably neutral position, but it's not really guiding anyone towards more privacy.

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Putting aside all other issues, here's an interesting question: while delivering this feature to users at large, what exactly is Mozilla planning to do to ensure it puts its best effort towards preserving users' privacy as much as possible even as they are openly offered the worst, yet most popular choices?

Because we all know the vast majority don't read or care about these:

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By choosing ChatGPT, you agree to the OpenAI Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

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[Mardak]

The current chatbot feature is behind a Firefox Labs checkbox to enable, so presumably mostly those who would even consider or already use a chatbot like ChatGPT. Even the most basic choice UI showing a menu list seems to have resulted in people discovering alternatives, and as we get closer to release, we can polish with potentially more educational / informative provider choice screen to help users decide such as availability of private chats, login requirements, quality of responses, etc.

This is still an early implementation of something functional of even getting the selected chatbots to respond in the sidebar, and we can add more options and guidance such as towards more privacy.

[ffffff]

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[...] as we get closer to release, we can polish with potentially more educational / informative provider choice screen to help users decide such as availability of private chats, login requirements, quality of responses, etc.

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If that's the plan, fair enough.

I'll try to keep the original point of the discussion thread in mind more often and see if there's anything I can offer regarding general use feedback.

[lackey]

Which of the four models have only used data with explicit consent, and which of the four have released the source of the data, not just a pre-compiled binary blob of it? As far as I can tell, none of these match the fundamental privacy Mozilla advocates for. 

Mozilla also has warned against trusting all four of these providers, writing "opting out is a request you can make to the company. You have to trust them to honor it -- and Big Tech hasn’t always played by the rules when it comes to consumers’ data."

[BlorgBlorgBlorg]

No, because, as you are aware, such models do not exist.  It would be more honest to either not respond to AI critics at all, or directly tell them you (and Mozilla) don't care about their concerns.

[PrankishHarmon]

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@lackey wrote:

a feature that users didn't request

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Who are these users? This generalised statement sounds biased and echo-chamber-y. The once who don't want this kind of feature will be loudest and most enganged in this thread, not necessarily the majority of Firefox users.

[lackey]

I said users didn't request it.

If you want to see users not requesting it, just look at this whole forum before Mozilla announced the unwanted, un-requested AI feature. 

You're among them. 

[BlorgBlorgBlorg]

There are not any companies operating in the LLM space that meet ethical standards regarding privacy and environmental impact, as you are aware.  Asking anyway creates the illusion that you are open to this feedback, and puts the onus on the person who shared their concerns with you in good faith to waste their time answering.  It would be more honest to either not respond to AI critics at all, or directly tell them you (and Mozilla) don't care about their concerns.

[qu1j0t3]

there is no ethical way to train and run LLMs. it just so happens that the companies you've named are particularly vile.

[everentropy]

That is absolutely not the main concern, it's just the only one you're paying attention to.

[advpod]

No.

Stop adding dumb trendy features. Spend engineering effort on integrating features that have nothing to do with browsing the web into a web browser. If I wanted to use a chatbot, I would install a chatbot app onto my computer. Features that have nothing to do with browsing the web have no place being in a web browser.

[Mardak]

How many people install separate chatbot apps vs access from a web browser? It seems like many people who do use chatbots are already using a web browser and likely manually copy/pasting information from tab to tab.

Your point of non-browser usage is still interesting, so could you provide some more concrete examples?

[Kwonunn]

Then just make it possible for extensions to add sidebar tabs and offer this as an extension! Instead of genuinely adding something useful to Firefox you've just opened Pandora's Box.

[IBBoard]

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@Mardak wrote:

Your point of non-browser usage is still interesting, so could you provide some more concrete examples?

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Let's flip it around. Can you provide some concrete examples of where adding this to Firefox is necessary and beneficial over having a separate app or an extension or (heaven forbid) just visiting the chatbot's website directly?

So far there appears to be absolutely nothing compelling about including this. A big company like Mozilla must have a Product Manager. Someone must have seen a user story and said "Yes! This is a killer one that we must spend engineering effort on!". But the huge, overwhelming majority of responses here seem to show that it's a user story that's out of touch with its users.

So what was that user story? What makes it so important? What value is this supposed to unlock that simpler, more ethical, more privacy-preserving and less environmentally damaging approaches can't do?

[eladio77]

Amazing feature. I find the funtion, but when i have active the vertical tabs i can not see the Boton "Chat IA", only i can see it without "Vertical Tabs" active. Can you add the shortcut access to the Vertical Tab menu?

[Mardak]

If you're referring to the new "sidebar.revamp" (with "sidebar.verticalTabs"), you should now have the AI chatbot icon available as shortcut access in today's Nightly.

 

[mcortt]

Very nice! But please add a keyboard shortcut to open it as well.

Edit: I didn't see where you had replied to my earlier suggestion. Please disregard, sorry!

[eladio77]

Thanks..  is working ...

[nclm]

Please Mozilla, don’t get lost. AI chatbots is a very silly feature, and it makes it hard to take you seriously. I know investors love it these days when tech companies integrate anything “AI” in their product, but you’re Mozilla, we all expect you to behave differently and for the good of the users and the web. There is no demand for AI chatbots, only unsolicited offer from the tech world, please don’t be part of this! There is nothing ethical about about offering a feature that is consistently giving misinformation based on stolen data processed on energy and water wasting machines. It would be lovely if you could focus your ressources on actually improving the browser and on communication campaigns to get more users, not on jumping on the latest fad. Thank you ❤️

[Mardak]

Have you found any uses of AI chatbots for your own situation? It sounds like you correctly don't trust the responses, and others with similar concerns can still find value with these tools such as entertainment.

[AdventureGamer]

What is entertaining about weakening the privacy standards of one of the only browsers worthy of respect in the whole internet? I love you Firefox. Please, please, please don't ruin what you have. You'll force me off my only & favorite browser. To be frank, if Firefox becomes Chrome with a coat of paint, I'll bail I swear to god - and I won't be the only one. What will investors say then? You're the last bastion of integrity in the whole game. Don't throw that away...

[Mardak]

Part of the reason for Firefox providing choices is so people can switch to those with better privacy standards. Do you have suggestions for existing providers that should be in the list or are you suggesting that Mozilla should have a service with better privacy?

[BlorgBlorgBlorg]

As you are aware, providers with ethical privacy standards do not exist. It would be more honest to either not respond to AI critics at all, or directly tell them you (and Mozilla) don't care about their concerns.

[MageBunkshelf]

If the matter is choice then make this an extension or don't make it at all. I choose to not associate with this kind of AI tech on ethical grounds. If Mozilla will continue with this plan to integrate this into Firefox then I will choose a different browser, and I say that as a Firefox advocate for over a decade.

[Lenyberry]

It's extremely clear that what everyone here is suggesting is that adding "AI" to your product degrades the privacy standards your users expect. Is it worth destroying your reputation?

[wwahammy]

I would advocate that users avoid Firefox going forward because you can't trust what abusive features they're going to add.

[spctrthf]

There are zero chatbot providers with ethical privacy standards and no Firefox users should be forced into any interaction with this software. Make it an entirely optional opt-in extension or don't proceed with it at all, that is the only "better" option here.

[fournm]

Respectfully, I expect better of Mozilla than encouraging environmental harm for entertainment.

[MageBunkshelf]

So if the reponses these bots give are "correctly" not to be trusted, do you think that some people finding the prompt results "entertaining" is worth the mass data scraping, the plagiarism and theft, and the considerable energy cost required to run these machines? If we're still talking about whether they have a use in the first place when the negatives are staring us in the face, why is this being added as a core feature to the base version of the browser?

If someone at Mozillla is dead-set on making this, then at minimum make it an extension so that people can opt-in to having it on their computer in the first place, rather than directing a mass audience to use an external private tool based on stolen data that *correctly* shouldn't be trusted.

[Lenyberry]

Firefox is a web browser, not a game. People don't want Firefox to entertain them, they want it to do the job they downloaded it for: enable them to browse the internet with relative privacy. Chatbot integration degrades the privacy protection of the browser in, frankly, unacceptable ways.

Those who wish to use a chatbot for entertainment can use the standard web browser functionality to navigate to one on the web.

[wutongtaiwan]

I want the AI chatbot feature, it's free, unlimited and no account login, and there are no geographical restrictions, and I don't want to be blocked because I'm in China

[Mardak]

Are you able to download and run a https://llamafile.ai as that would be free, unlimited and no account login. It runs on your computer, so you don't need internet access to chat, but it could be slow depending on your hardware.

[wutongtaiwan]

It would be even better if AI could be used for search, enabling an open-source AI model locally, and when searching, the AI aggregates the search results and answers them in the form of a human conversation, just like a chatbot

[Mardak]

Are you suggesting the chatbot to look at the search result page content or would you expect Firefox/chatbot visit some linked pages for you? There are AI services that do this like https://perplexity.ai that you could configure as a custom provider and also supports passing in your custom prompts.

[wutongtaiwan]

I want the chatbot to look at the content of the search results page, summarize it based on the content, and answer in human language

[Mardak]

Something like this?

[wutongtaiwan]

yes

[piradata]

Loved the feature, I always have a open tab just for chatgpt, so its a big win, and its nice that it can be disabled or opt in/out for people that don't like it.

What I miss is just a way to simply open the chat on the sidebar, the only way I found is to right click and chose one option in 'Summarize', 'Simplify Language' or 'Quiz Me', but neither of these options can be used to just open a plain clear new chat, and if I close the sidebar, there is no way to open it again on the previous conversation.

What i would suggest, is simply a button on the bookmark toolbar, to simply open close the chat, that would suffice already 🙂

[Mardak]

You can Customize toolbar to add a sidebar toggle button, and the chatbot will open a plain new chat. If you are logged in to some chat providers, you should be able to access previous conversations as well. Potentially Firefox could restore the last conversation, but others might prefer a clear chat, so maybe we could restore when reopening as well as provide a button to start new?

The improved sidebar also has a button to open/close the AI chatbot (as well as other sidebar tools).