Firefox uses on-device downloaded-on-demand ML models for privacy-preserving translation.
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I think the challenge with everything going on here is one of clarity.
@sil, you are asking them about disclosure of models and sourcing. But that is far from the only AI that is in the system.
The tool that does grammar checking and language identification does not leverage an LLM, and while there may be some type of model underneath, the context is very different. Tools that detect spam pages or faulty JavaScript that locks the pages, that's another type of AI hard at work.
Is the browser allowed to support speech to text?
@jmax You're calling out that Firefox may not be able to do this, but I think that mischaracterizes the scope of what's happening here.
The browser has several types of non-deterministic, probabilistic tools in it that provide useful services. Now there's a backlash against one very specific version of those non-deterministic, probabilistic tools. But the backlash is vociferous, often unsolvable, and incredibly broad.
It's hard to engage with non-specific anger.
@gatesvp @firefoxwebdevs @sil @jmax They could engage with the nonspecific anger by removing the VERY SPECIFIC technologies at issue
Instead they want to make us argue about "well, if we haul away the shit, do you want us to haul away the bark dust, too? Some people need bark dust, so you have to let us smear shit all over everything"
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@cassidy @firefoxwebdevs The term "AI" has existed since 1956 so of course it's going to have a very broad definition.
Things don't just stop being "AI" when AI researchers invent newer "more AI" stuff.
@mage_of_dragons @cassidy @firefoxwebdevs We also know exactly what lies in store for the current slate of AI: 20 years of funding drought, just like all its ancestors
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@twifkak Wouldn't that be a valid working definition of "open"?
@tasket It would be, much in the way that "guaranteed not to turn pink in the can" is a valid description of bad salmon [1]. A disingenuous mislead from what people really care about in the product.
[1] I know it didn't happen. It's a good metaphor.
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Firefox uses on-device downloaded-on-demand ML models for privacy-preserving translation.
They're not LLMs. They're trained on open data.
Should translation be disabled if the AI 'kill switch' is active?
@firefoxwebdevs My closest answer would be "no", but I think the question is kind of mis-phrased here, and that's probably going to lead to a confusing and potentially misleading outcome.
The problem that people have is not with "AI" as a generalized category, but with the current generation of thieving, climate-destroying, grifting systems that are marketed as AI to an overwhelming degree - notably LLMs and "generative AI", but really anything with those inconsiderate properties.
If your kill switch is presented as an "AI kill switch", then depending on the person they're either going to understand that as "exploitative tech", or as "machine learning", and so make different assumptions as to whether local translation is included in that.
So I think you'll have to be a lot more explicit about what you mean; either by describing clearly what the kill-switch includes, or what it excludes, right in the place where the option is offered. Otherwise it's damned if you do, damned if you don't; depending on whether you include translations, either one or another group is going to be upset with the unexpected behaviour.
So, ethically, if the translation feature is built on ethically collected data, and it has no outsized climate impact, then I would not consider it something that needs to be included in a "get rid of all of it" kill switch. But to convey this clearly to users, both that and why it isn't included should be explained right there with the button, with potentially a second-step option to disable it anyway if someone still feels uncomfortable with it.
That way you've transparently communicated to users and shown that you have nothing up your sleeve by immediately and proactively offering them an option to disable that, too, if they have already shown interest in removing "AI" features.
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@tasket It would be, much in the way that "guaranteed not to turn pink in the can" is a valid description of bad salmon [1]. A disingenuous mislead from what people really care about in the product.
[1] I know it didn't happen. It's a good metaphor.
@twifkak I think you're mixing up "We do not own" with "We do not have rights to". 🤷
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Firefox uses on-device downloaded-on-demand ML models for privacy-preserving translation.
They're not LLMs. They're trained on open data.
Should translation be disabled if the AI 'kill switch' is active?
@firefoxwebdevs
Y'all know as well as we do this feature-creep junk belongs in extensions - if anywhere at all. It does NOT belong in or anywhere near core.Please keep the world's browser lean and healthy and strong. We need all the help we can get.
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@zzt @pixel @firefoxwebdevs "Nobody likes our product any longer, but at least we never had to entertain any *shudder* critical feedback."
@liquor_american @zzt @pixel @firefoxwebdevs As the only remaining cross-platform browser that is not chromium, Mozilla deserves nothing but pressure to do better. Defending Mozilla about anything other than making Gecko better is giving them permission to eventually be just another chromium skin
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@firefoxwebdevs an important addendum regarding Firefox translate: by my math (N = my replies), 25% of its users are fucking unhinged
I told them not to use the necronomicon to train the base model but here we fucking are
@zzt @firefoxwebdevs Sorry, but I just cannot escape the call for #ShamelessPlug (though, as usual, #IHaveNothingToSell):
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@zzt I posted this poll after a meeting where we discussed the design of the kill switch, and there was uncertainty around translations. I want to make sure the community's voice is represented in these discussions.
@firefoxwebdevs Perhaps it would be a good idea to do occasional one-time surveys of Firefox users - like when they start the browser up after an update. That way you get to hear directly from the people who are using it. Lots of folk on the socials have strong opinions but aren't necessarily using FF as a daily driver.
If I was writing the questions they might include things like...
- Should FF enable new AI features by default? [y/n]
- Would you like to be able to see at a glance which AI features are enabled? [y/n]
- Are there any particular features (AI or not!) that you feel FF is missing, and which you would actually use on a regular basis?
On that last one, I would maybe have some check boxes for things that tend to come up again and again like native RSS reader, FTP, Gemini (protocol!), WebUSB, WebSerial, UXP etc.
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@twifkak I think you're mixing up "We do not own" with "We do not have rights to". 🤷
@tasket Perhaps. Show me what rights they have to it.
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@firefoxwebdevs My closest answer would be "no", but I think the question is kind of mis-phrased here, and that's probably going to lead to a confusing and potentially misleading outcome.
The problem that people have is not with "AI" as a generalized category, but with the current generation of thieving, climate-destroying, grifting systems that are marketed as AI to an overwhelming degree - notably LLMs and "generative AI", but really anything with those inconsiderate properties.
If your kill switch is presented as an "AI kill switch", then depending on the person they're either going to understand that as "exploitative tech", or as "machine learning", and so make different assumptions as to whether local translation is included in that.
So I think you'll have to be a lot more explicit about what you mean; either by describing clearly what the kill-switch includes, or what it excludes, right in the place where the option is offered. Otherwise it's damned if you do, damned if you don't; depending on whether you include translations, either one or another group is going to be upset with the unexpected behaviour.
So, ethically, if the translation feature is built on ethically collected data, and it has no outsized climate impact, then I would not consider it something that needs to be included in a "get rid of all of it" kill switch. But to convey this clearly to users, both that and why it isn't included should be explained right there with the button, with potentially a second-step option to disable it anyway if someone still feels uncomfortable with it.
That way you've transparently communicated to users and shown that you have nothing up your sleeve by immediately and proactively offering them an option to disable that, too, if they have already shown interest in removing "AI" features.
@firefoxwebdevs Here's a concrete example of what I mean, that should be pretty consistent with the Firefox UI design:
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@wes @firefoxwebdevs Sure. But can we agree that it does not represent a core functionality of a web browser?
Like "this meeting could've been an email," but "this feature could've been an add-on."
A web browser should load web pages, allow you to interact with them, and offer add-on support for functionality that doesn't match the definition of "web browser." It's all pretty straight-forward if you're not a marketer, whose brains are all broken.
> A web browser should load web pages, allow you to interact with them ...
I would point out that translating a web page written in a non-native language allows me to interact with said page. Your argument can go both ways.
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@firefoxwebdevs My closest answer would be "no", but I think the question is kind of mis-phrased here, and that's probably going to lead to a confusing and potentially misleading outcome.
The problem that people have is not with "AI" as a generalized category, but with the current generation of thieving, climate-destroying, grifting systems that are marketed as AI to an overwhelming degree - notably LLMs and "generative AI", but really anything with those inconsiderate properties.
If your kill switch is presented as an "AI kill switch", then depending on the person they're either going to understand that as "exploitative tech", or as "machine learning", and so make different assumptions as to whether local translation is included in that.
So I think you'll have to be a lot more explicit about what you mean; either by describing clearly what the kill-switch includes, or what it excludes, right in the place where the option is offered. Otherwise it's damned if you do, damned if you don't; depending on whether you include translations, either one or another group is going to be upset with the unexpected behaviour.
So, ethically, if the translation feature is built on ethically collected data, and it has no outsized climate impact, then I would not consider it something that needs to be included in a "get rid of all of it" kill switch. But to convey this clearly to users, both that and why it isn't included should be explained right there with the button, with potentially a second-step option to disable it anyway if someone still feels uncomfortable with it.
That way you've transparently communicated to users and shown that you have nothing up your sleeve by immediately and proactively offering them an option to disable that, too, if they have already shown interest in removing "AI" features.
@joepie91 yeah, I agree with all that, but even tech folks are asking for a way to 'get rid of AI'. I'm pretty certain if we tried to redefine what they're asking for, it would be received poorly.
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@tasket Perhaps. Show me what rights they have to it.
@twifkak They're using the "PD" mark, thus public domain.
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@joepie91 yeah, I agree with all that, but even tech folks are asking for a way to 'get rid of AI'. I'm pretty certain if we tried to redefine what they're asking for, it would be received poorly.
@firefoxwebdevs That's exactly the motivation behind my suggestion, though - I've attached a mockup in an additional reply to hopefully make it clearer, but the idea here is to not redefine it so much as it is to explicitly pick a definition, and then provide an additional option for the broader definition, so that a user can essentially pick whichever definition they are following without getting into the technical weeds too much.
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@twifkak They're using the "PD" mark, thus public domain.
@twifkak Also notice that Mastodon instances are using LibreTranslate.
Has that been debated as well?
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Firefox uses on-device downloaded-on-demand ML models for privacy-preserving translation.
They're not LLMs. They're trained on open data.
Should translation be disabled if the AI 'kill switch' is active?
@firefoxwebdevs Automatic translations are good and an internet in which people don't feel like they can't speak their native tongue for fear of losing their audience can only be a good thing.
Not sure how any reasonable person can believe that such a domain-specific model begets similar ethical objections as modern LLMs.
You know, folks don't hate AI because they're scared of neural networks...
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@twifkak They're using the "PD" mark, thus public domain.
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Firefox uses on-device downloaded-on-demand ML models for privacy-preserving translation.
They're not LLMs. They're trained on open data.
Should translation be disabled if the AI 'kill switch' is active?
@firefoxwebdevs I’d say keep the translation thing and simply lose all the other LLM/GenAI/chatbot stuff altogether*. I think this is an excellent marketing opportunity. There are plenty of people highly skeptical of “AI”. This is a big market! You could be the next Brother, winning by refraining from shooting yourself in the foot (https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-laser-wi-fi-its-fine). And you’ll be ahead of the curve when The Bubble pops.
I’m not kidding.(*they can still be opt in plugins)
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@firefoxwebdevs The frame of this question is risible.
I am begging you to just make a web browser.
Make it the best browser for the open web. Make it a browser that empowers individuals. Make it a browser that defends users against threats.
Do not make a search engine. Do not make a translation engine. Do not make a webpage summariser. Do not make a front-end for an LLM. Do not make a client-side LLM.
Just. Make. A. Web. Browser.
Please.
@m0rpk @firefoxwebdevs quite honestly, you're off the mark, **a lot**.
A browser with a built-in translator is a door opener for the open web for so many people that don't read English well enough to benefit from the dominant corpus of technological, cultural and scientific websites.
Firefox could indeed remove that functionality and instead of letting people translate websites on their phone make them use the google translate app that directly. Congrats on how you've advocated for the open web.
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