Firefox uses on-device downloaded-on-demand ML models for privacy-preserving translation.

potayto, potahto

@davidgerard @tanfonto @firefoxwebdevs

@firefoxwebdevs Is it an off-switch, or isn't it?

"Off-switch except for this PM's pet project" is not an off-switch.

@davidgerard

Let's assume you're correct.
People only care about AI slop.

Why is Firefox even running this survey? Like who cares? Translations aren't "AI slop", they don't need to be covered by the "AI Kill Switch"... why are they even asking this question?

Now take that assumption and read the rest of the comments. From what I'm reading, people care about more than just the AI slop. People are asking questions about the models being used for ML systems, systems that are incapable of generating AI slop.

So we're at a weird spot here. You believe that people care only about AI slop. Firefox obviously believes that people care about more than that, because they're running this survey. And people responding are asking questions that also indicate they care about more than AI slop.

So how do we square this?
What do you think is a better outcome for Firefox and the community?

@mcc @mdavis @firefoxwebdevs

Points for "AI infected". Treating AI like a computer virus is a helpful concept.

The translation models are opt-in, because each language must be individually loaded. The same approach should apply to every other AI-adjacent function - those using remote services included. Especially those.
@firefoxwebdevs

@duke_of_germany @firefoxwebdevs @zzt how can we cook the books by showing rational demand? too rigorous for the valley

@firefoxwebdevs @chillicampari @joepie91 I don’t think ML translation is what most people are thinking of when they’re complaining about AI. Machine translation has been around for over 20 years at this point, is fairly efficient, and while it makes mistakes (and those mistakes keep real translators if business for things that matter), it’s not the carbon spewing plagiarism machine that generative AI is. When I want an AI kill switch, I mean I don’t want my queries to create “summary” responses, or to add to a corpus that leaks my private information. Similarly, I want my radiologist’s CT software to flag potential issues, but I don’t want it to make up phantom blood clots, either.

@W6KME @raymaccarthy @firefoxwebdevs @zzt Exactly this. When you're eating, you don't want to be aware of your cutlery.

@mcc @firefoxwebdevs It is a shame that we’ve come to having to ban the use of some tools.

I used an unfortunate word choice, despite an apropos meaning in this context: an idiot is an utterly foolish or senseless person. Programmers should know how to properly use the tools they have. That’s why I’m not all against AI codegen. In the right hands, a tool can create something beautiful and useful. In foolish hands, it can damage.

Learn your craft first. Then use tools properly to enhance it.

@gatesvp @davidgerard

Why is Firefox even running this survey?

Because the people in charge genuinely believe that AI slop is The Future and believe that, in order to stay relevant, Firefox must become an AI Browser.

But somehow users inexplicably dislike AI slop?! How can this be?!

Embedding AI slop in Firefox as deeply and pervasively as possible is thus a critical goal. But this risks reputational damage with its actual users! To mitigate the risk, bundle features that were not controversial into the discussion of the controversial features; this serves to average the controversy across the (previously uncontroversial, existing) translation feature and highly controversial new slop features, hopefully reducing it below an ignorable threshold.

@Fooker @firefoxwebdevs at this point unfortunately I have given up on the main Firefox and switched to Zen Browser (a fork). It's a shame and honestly no shade to the devs bc my decision was made when Mozilla's CEO(s) keep doing dumb stuff.

@firefoxwebdevs @mdavis small clarification

@firefoxwebdevs introduced the concept of an "AI kill switch"

the "AI kill switch purists" you're talking about don't exist.

No serious person would think this is a good idea because it doesn't make sense. Evident by this "design" stumble at the start line

https://mastodon.social/@firefoxwebdevs/115740500373677782

@mdavis @firefoxwebdevs Well, if LLMs are a tool you use as part of your process of writing code, then I don't want to use any code you created

@firefoxwebdevs@mastodon.social anyone else have "they're not LLMs. They're trained on open data" in their #Mozilla buffoonery bingo card?

@mage_of_dragons @cassidy @firefoxwebdevs

Well we were generally calling these things ML, until the AI hype train started. That isn't totally helpful, since LLMs are themselves another type of ML, but it would sure help to be able to talk about this stuff more specifically by not even more broadly calling it AI.

@mdavis @firefoxwebdevs

The Firefox AI "kill switch" is not "complicated" except insofar as it's incoherent. it's not "undisclosed nuance" except insofar as it's incoherent.

the "kill switch" doesn't exist.

this is important to keep in mind. once you remember that NONE OF THIS EXISTS, you will realise that every one of the dilemmas you posit is an imaginary problem that follows from incoherent postulates.

e.g. "AI kill switch purists" is not a coherent postulation because the "kill switch" does not exist.

the "kill switch" is a hypothetical proposed in this post:

https://mastodon.social/@firefoxwebdevs/115740500373677782

the "kill switch" is a proposal to satisfy the demand for an opt-in by providing an opt-out. you might think that's a failure to respect the question, and you might even begin to suspect the proposal was in bad faith.

note that Jake, in presenting the kill switch and calling it a kill switch and getting it into all the papers as a kill switch, says he's uncomfortable with the name he's publicised it as. you might think that's oddly incompetent for literally a PR (devrel) person.

the concept as presented imposes multiple false dilemmas.

the LLM stuff should *incredibly obviously* be an extension. this is the purest possible opt-in, despite jake's past attempts to muddy the meaning of "opt-in".

making it an extension is also eminently feasible. There is literally no technical reason it needs to be a browser built-in.

this suggests the reasons are not in any way technical. some person with a name, who has yet to be named, dictated that it would be a built-in. so that's what Mozilla is going with.

why Mozilla went hard AI is entirely unclear. this would have been late 2024? we have no idea who was inspired with this bad idea nor why they were so incredibly keen to force it into the browser.

nor is it clear what Mozilla will do for external LLM services when the AI bubble runs out of venture capital and pops in a year or so, most of the chatbot APIs shut down and whatever remains is 10x the cost at least. but that's a problem for 2027's bonus, not 2026's.

note how the poll provides no option for "no LLM functions built-in to Firefox", in a pathetically transparent attempt to synthesize consent. jake wants to use this poll as evidence of what the user base wants, deliberately leaving out the option he knows directly a lot of them want.

and in conclusion:

1. solve the "kill switch" naming problem by branding it the "brutal and bloody robot murder switch with an option on the executives responsible".
2. make all this shit an extension like they should have a year ago.
3. and your little translator too.

@fasterandworse @firefoxwebdevs @mdavis it is less likely to be a stumble and more likely introduced in bad faith by a PM to derail the process

Btw, there's meaningful discussion to be had about the biases encoded in ML-based translation -- try translating "the scientist" and "the teacher" into a language with gendered nouns. But that is separate from the widespread opposition to LLMs and everyone knows it.

@mcc @firefoxwebdevs It is going to be very difficult to avoid any application being built today that doesn’t have some part of it “infected” by AI.

There are degrees of “codegen” as well… to what extent do you employ it? A scaffolded loop, autocompleted function call that gets the order of the parameters right?

Or draft out and deploy an entire application?

I think we have to be realistic about it but also call out the fools who are misusing it or thinking it makes them a real programmer.

@m0rpk @firefoxwebdevs you have it completely backwards, AI should be opt in not opt out

@firefoxwebdevs I also like the idea of having all such features as extensions rather than built in features, so they can be explicitly turned on by people who want to.

Would really make the product clearly stand out from others