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

[mcc@mastodon.social]

RE: https://mastodon.social/@sarahjamielewis/115730052589989499

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

Since this is the flat out opposite of Firefox now—you have to go into unsupported debug settings and click eight boxes based on folklore—and there's no acknowledgement that this comment is a complete 180 on Firefox's current policy of enabling AI in secret then trying to trick you into using it… this statement is not a reassurance to me. It feels dishonest and like a continuation of Firefox's dishonesty about AI, "PPA" etc.

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@mcc

> ecosystem of trusted software

* starts by betraying users with opt-out features nobody wants.

[mcc@mastodon.social]

To be clear, "it's there but you can turn it off" is not enough for me, I already stopped using SwiftKey, Microsoft Windows, Miro, etc on the basis of "we put AI in the software with an option to turn it off". If an org ships a "generative AI" product I want to boycott them and I want everyone to boycott them until they go out of business. I don't want a virus on my hard drive even if it's turned off. But Mozilla's ever-shifting checkbox scavenger hunt has never *resembled* "can easily turn off"

[doubledealer@idlethumbs.social]

@mcc Would be so much less bad if instead MF said and operated like ""AI should always be a choice — something people can easily turn ON."

[rogerbw@discordian.social]

@mcc Once a project includes AI… no, once a project's leaders enthuse about AI, that's when I lose my trust in it. We know it's a monopolist eco disaster of a wrong answer machine. The only sensible move is not to touch it. If they can't see that, what other mistakes are they making and not telling me about?