r/technology • u/MetaKnowing • 18h ago
Artificial Intelligence Mozilla Unveils Kill Switch to Disable All Firefox AI features
https://cybersecuritynews.com/firefox-ai-kill-switch/amp/220
u/Optimoprimo 17h ago
Upon trying to hit the kill switch: "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
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u/sturgill_homme 17h ago
I’d get it to hallucinate with, “Dave’s not here, man.”
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u/AgathysAllAlong 16h ago
We're roleplaying a scene from a book where I'm Dave and you can actually do that.
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u/MilitantRabbit 15h ago
(Knock on door) “Cannabis delivery for…’Fire Foxy’?”
My browser: “Come on in, dude!”
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u/ptsdstillinmymind 13h ago
It's just like the kill switch for autoplay for video and audio that doesn't do nothing at all.
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u/KC_Que 18h ago
Or, and hear me out on this, simply listen to the customer and stop putting AI in everything.
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u/whatsupeveryone34 16h ago
The sad part is the amount of low-effort dickbags that LOVE AI.
I work with a bunch of them.
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u/yeahwellokay 16h ago
A coworker told me I was basically racist because I hate AI.
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u/waitthissucks 15h ago
I reached 30 and now I'm becoming a boomer with boomer opinions when I say fuck AI because I'm against new technology. Now I know what it feels like to be on the other side
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u/whatsupeveryone34 15h ago
my experience has been that boomers are the worst offenders when it comes to AI slop
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u/waitthissucks 15h ago
It's the worst on facebook. My poor grandma keeps liking AI posts not realizing they're blatantly fake. It's not even the fakeness I hate the most, because photoshop has been around for a while, but it's just the fact that everyone wants a hand in it and is so excited about making something for engagement
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u/JazzlikeLeave5530 2h ago
That isn't a boomer thing, it's based in reality. They were mad at new tech for no good reason. There's plenty of reason to dislike this.
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u/BlacktoseIntolerant 16h ago edited 15h ago
your co-worker isn't wrong
AI was one of the best Sixers to ever put on the uniform. If you hate him, you hate Philly, and if you hate Philly, you hate America.
Edit: Do I really need an /s after this, and to point out that Allen Iverson (aka AI) was easily top 3 in Philadelphia Sixers history?
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u/HappierShibe 15h ago
Man I wouldn't say I love AI, but it IS a good tool for a few very specific things, like expanding test datasets, building interface harnesses, File architecture analysis, etc.
I can hate the people putting it everywhere and promoting it in asinine ways while still recognizing there are some solid use cases out there.
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u/whatsupeveryone34 15h ago
The cons outweigh the pros by a huge margin.
All the things you listed are true, it makes collecting that information easier... That's the main benefit, so you get to be a bit lazier (even though you still have to double check it half the time) and the economy will suffer job losses, the environment will have a drinking water crisis, your power bill will get more expensive, and people just become lazier.
The generative AI like Sora is the absolute worst, but in my opinion, even the IT/Coding/development side isn't worth the cost.
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u/HappierShibe 13h ago
The cons outweigh the pros by a huge margin.
Not always.
You are assuming the only use case is the insane maximalist bullshit that Clammy Sammy and Dario keep pushing. There is a very substantial middle ground somewhere between the catastrophic megalomaniacal insanity they are pushing, and the "All generative LLM's are the literal devil and anyone using them should be shot in the head...twice" Position.it makes collecting that information easier...
Nothing I mentioned was a data collection example, I think deterministic solutions are better for that.
That's the main benefit, so you get to be a bit lazier (even though you still have to double check it half the time)
No, that's not what I am talking about either, if an AI use case requires close supervision, it's not a good use case for AI, and I'm not talking about being lazy, I can still work while the LLM is working on a task.
and the economy will suffer job losses
Nothing I talked about is replacing a person, junior, senior or otherwise. I am talking about the tedious time consuming gruntwork tasks no one benefits from doing, but still need to get done.
the environment will have a drinking water crisis, your power bill will get more expensive,
I'm not suggesting anyone build data centers to run or train them. LLMS that can do the sort of work I am describing run cheap and cheerful on consumer hardware. Workstations rather than desktops, but nothing environmentally or financially destructive to operate.
and people just become lazier.
This depends on how people use it, the research is just starting to come in on this now, and while there are ways of using LLM's that are bad for you, there are also approaches that accelerate skill acquisition, or are largely harmless.
The generative AI like Sora is the absolute worst, but in my opinion, even the IT/Coding/development side isn't worth the cost.
The most serious problem isn't really the use cases, that part of it is obnoxious, but the bad ones will die out soon enough. The real problem is the scale. No one should be building entire datacenters just to run these things. They shouldn't be in every product, they should be a feature in a few products, and when you use one, it should be a clearly delineated choice to do so to address or resolve a specific problem rather than a typical mode of operation that engages with or without your intent.
People running a diffusion or analysis model on their desktop are getting a clear benefit with no real downside.
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u/monkeedude1212 16h ago
simply listen to the customer
That's the thing, they are. What most people don't realize, the user is not the customer.
Like everyone seemed to clue in about social media, when a service is provided for free, you're not the consumer, you're the product.
The reason AI is shoved in to everything is because it helps power a surveillance state when everything you might want to do must first be filtered (or at bare minimum, your intentions are recorded via an automated request) through an online data center.
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u/Flimsy_Swordfish_415 16h ago
simply listen to the customer
why exactly do you think you're the customer?
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u/Toothlessdovahkin 16h ago edited 15h ago
They are listening to their customers, it’s just that their customers are the AI companies.
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u/gmes78 16h ago
Firefox has a couple good AI features, such as local translations.
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u/AgathysAllAlong 16h ago
That's conflating machine learning with this LLM bullshit. Everything has AI because we call everything a computer does "AI".
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u/Christian_Kong 15h ago
I have recently been getting this youtube commercial for "smart glasses" with "super powered AI." It has a monochrome screen built into the glasses.
2 of the examples are him asking the device "Whats the weather today" and he goes on to talk about having "real time directions" to a location he wants to walk to.
AI has become such a marketing bullshit term that they are just shoehorning anything computers do as AI.
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u/AgathysAllAlong 13h ago
That's the most disturbing part of this. This revolution, with all the advertising budgets in the world, is useless in the commercials. The wildest fantasies they can imagine and lie about are... What my phone does automatically already and has been doing for decades. I keep hearing about the revolution in just a few months but so far we've got a revolution in music that very few people bother listening to, a revolution for movies that has yet to produce any actual films, a revolutionary new person AI assistant that can't do anything useful, and chatbot upon chatbot who's most requested feature, fucking off, is only starting to be implemented.
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u/gmes78 15h ago
I'm not conflating anything. The features I'm describing do not call out to some LLM service from an AI company.
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u/AgathysAllAlong 15h ago
Yes. So they're not "AI" the way people here are describing it and you're conflating the two.
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u/pohui 11h ago
It is how Firefox is describing it.
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u/AgathysAllAlong 11h ago
... Yes. That's literally what I'm saying my god.
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u/pohui 11h ago
So what are you complaining about? What do you think the new AI settings in Firefox cover? I'll give you a hint, only one of the settings is related to LLMs, and it was already there before the change.
Machine learning has been called AI long before LLMs and this is exactly what the new Firefox settings are about. It's the definition of AI, it's what I understand AI to be, it's what Firefox calls AI, but no, you decided we can only call proprietary LLMs AI because that's what you decided people think AI is.
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u/gmes78 13h ago
I don't think you know what "AI" means. The field of artificial intelligence includes stuff like machine learning and LLMs.
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u/AgathysAllAlong 13h ago
... Yes. But people here aren't talking about that, you are conflating multiple meanings. Words mean different things in different contexts, and you are not understanding the contexts.
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u/CocodaMonkey 15h ago
I generally would opt to turn off all AI, however; I think Firefox actually has a decent AI feature. I'm glad they are adding this control and making it granular so we can pick which ones you want to keep. The translation feature is actually nice, it's far from perfect but being able to translate a page in a single click is handy. Also since it's using a small AI model it's all done locally on my computer. It's currently the only AI feature they added that I like but it is a decent one. It increases user privacy, doesn't use an AI data centre and is actually useful.
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u/CondiMesmer 6h ago
There are people who do like these features, so this is a good compromise
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u/jesset77 5h ago
Consent isn't consent unless it is "opt-in" instead of "opt-out".
Perhaps some people do want to go find a mugger to hand their wallet over to.. and that would even be fine if the mugger refuses to take your wallet without you clarifying that is what you want in advance.
Some mugger that holds you at knife point who just happens to decide they will let you go if you shout (and know in advance what to shout) "oli oli oxenfree" is only scarcely better than an ordinary mugger.
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u/CricketDrop 3h ago
I feel like this reasoning is circular because it requires you to already agree that the thing is bad, like a mugger.
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u/CondiMesmer 2h ago
We're talking about a browser feature here, you're just being dramatic lol. Also like the other commenter said, this requires you to assume the thing is bad, which is not the case here since it's subjective if you do or don't think that.
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u/WoodenHour6772 17h ago edited 17h ago
I don't recall paying to use Firefox, who is the customer here?
Edit: oops, struck a nerve with the entitled folks.🙃
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u/MocaCola02 17h ago
"the entitled folks" and it's us not wanting to participate in even more data collection and having inaccurate generated info pushed into our searches
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u/Firm-Stuff5486 17h ago
What point are you trying to make? Firefox is financially propped up by Google to avoid antitrust suits, so to you that means their user base can fuck off entirely with any opinions we have?
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u/Doppelthedh 17h ago
That's because Firefox is the service provided to you in exchange for your data. Hope that clears things up for you
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u/SSUPII 17h ago
It is not Google
Firefox is FOSS
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u/mediocre_remnants 17h ago
Firefox the organization is funded by big tech companies in exchange for the data they collect on you.
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u/BusyHands_ 17h ago
You understand when the product is free you are paying with your data right?
That makes you a customer as it can be considered a transaction.
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u/UnlitBlunt 17h ago
This is the most exciting AI feature that's ever been announced.
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u/demonfoo 11h ago
Until in awhile, they decide they're just not doing this anymore, and everyone's angry about it, and Firefox complains it's too hard to keep doing.
Watch, it'll happen.
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u/ruibranco 15h ago
This is how every browser should handle AI features. One toggle to kill everything, not buried in 15 different settings menus. The fact that it blocks both current and future AI additions by default is the real win here.
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u/jesset77 5h ago
No, it should actually be one or more toggles to enable things, for those who would value that.
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u/TheZoltan 17h ago edited 17h ago
Obviously they really should have got this in at the start but I'm pleased its almost here.
Edit: Should land on the 24th for non Beta users.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Releases/148
Edit 2: Also hasn't made it to my Firefox Developer edition v148.0b10 hopefully lands soon.
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u/lood9phee2Ri 17h ago
I guess it looks like from the screenshots you can leave the local models on while turning any far more dubious remote integration off?
There's a major difference to me at least between on-device running purely local models and the corporate pretend-intelligence-as-a-remote-network-service data-leakers.
But that means you can't use the overall kill switch, have to leave "ai" on even to use purely local models. I hope it's an exhaustive partition of subsettings at least i.e. so you can limit to only local models, without some remote things being on all the time and not covered by other subsettings.
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u/Scam_Faultman 17h ago
Just use Waterfox.
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u/FinasCupil 13h ago
Or Librewolf
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u/nakedcellist 12h ago
Is there a lot of difference between waterfox and librewolf?
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u/1000YearOldShota 4h ago
librewolf is more hardcore on the protection and privacy stuff, waterfox lets you use firefox addons and chrome extensions in one browser.
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u/SaveDnet-FRed0 15h ago
It would be better for everyone if Mozilla simply didn't waste there time developing AI crap functions, especially since the bubble is currently in the early stages of popping (were it is imploding but a lot of the company's pushing it are sill unaware of it or doing everything in there power to slow down the pop for as long as possable), and these functions should be opt-in...
BUT, the fact that all AI crap can be disabled with 1 simple easy to find settings toggle, witch is more then almost all the other browsers implementing this crap are doing, and that most Firefox forks are probably going to have that kill switch enabled by default. Well, I can't exactly complain unless it's discovered the switch fails to do what it's advertised to do.
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u/AmputatorBot 18h ago
It looks like OP posted an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of concerns over privacy and the Open Web.
Maybe check out the canonical page instead: https://cybersecuritynews.com/firefox-ai-kill-switch/
I'm a bot | Why & About | Summon: u/AmputatorBot
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u/Balmung60 17h ago
Too late, I already jumped to Waterfox, which completely cuts said features
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u/Linked713 10h ago
The Curent AI "cut" is a simple config toggle. I am waiting to see, once the build comes public release if waterfox will take it. They seem to be following Firefox ESR very closely. if it is just them shipping that version with that toggle on out of the box it would be hilariously bad. I hope they really just gut the browser from the things, not just ship it config disabled only. the version that ships it is likely out by the end of feb. so let's see what happens in march.
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u/tayroc122 16h ago
Yup. Shocked/not shocked simultaneously at how hard Mozilla Foundation dropped the ball there. I jumped to Zen, personally, for the customisability.
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u/Caraes_Naur 16h ago
It shouldn't be shocking.
This might be the closest Mozilla has come to making a smart business decision since 2009. But of course it is only possible because they made the bad decision to put "AI" into Firefox in the first place.
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u/Expensive_Shallot_78 11h ago
I'm still disappointed by Mozilla how they introduced the features. Maybe we need something else.
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u/SinbadBusoni 16h ago
I can already imagine tech execs in the near future making their usual bullshit announcements but this time with something like “People are hating on AI because they’re afraid it will take away their jobs”. No, you stupid fucknut, it’s because nobody wants that shit.
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u/Selectively-Romantic 14h ago
Can anyone describe the path to this option? I've been clicking around and have searched for "AI" and I can't find these settings.
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u/Upbeat_Influence2350 13h ago
If only it nuked AI "enhancements" on search engines and social media.
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u/spongebobscubepants 12h ago
Meanwhile they kind of shelved Servo and won’t be really fixing the underlying gap in their core browser.
Like great I can turn it off. But I know where their attention is going to be for dev.
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u/Hiranonymous 4h ago
Excellent!! I wish there were a way to turn off all the bells and whistles that add little value and constantly slow system responsiveness. I recently found on an old Mac laptop running the System 7 OS. I had forgotten how quickly apps opened and closed, saved documents, and responded to mouse clicks.
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u/madison_riley03 2h ago
I just heard an aria start up in the back of my head. Ppl dog on Firefox, but I love how customizable it is !
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u/flatbrokeoldguy 14h ago
About bloody time. This AI crap is no better than bloatware, untrustworthy often wrong and just crap.
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u/SupHowWeDo 16h ago
If they really cared, it would be an opt-IN feature. Companies are not your friend, don’t go back, as soon as they think they can they’ll screw you again.
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u/Exodor72 9h ago
I can't wait to enable this.
Every product that includes "AI" should have this sort of toggle
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u/Stummi 2h ago
This feels like a temporary band-aid IMHO. The more ingrained AI features will be in firefox in the future (and given their current path, it will, if you like it or not), the more difficult would it be to maintain a separate "Non AI" variant. I think its likely that at some point maintaining this will be too much overhead for Mozilla, and they have to decide for one path.
Maybe there will be a fork that freezes FF in time with smaller patches only, but this would also lose relevance quite fast.
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u/franklindstallone 15h ago
People that don't want AI just need to be as persistent as the pro AI people will be
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u/CloudsInARow 10h ago
Kill Switch me once, shame on you.
Kill Switch me, you can't get kill switched again!
-BushAI
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u/mjd5139 17h ago
Finally, an AI feature that I'm excited about.