Waterfox will not incorporate LLMs into the browser. However, AI predates chatbots, so implementing a blanket ban on AI would mean opting out of modern computing. […]
I also really dislike “AI” as a blanket term being used for LLMs and GenAI, but now we are dragging things that were never called AI in the first place into it? (as well as specific-purpose-built models that were called machine learning at the time)
Spam detection, autocomplete, OCR, weather prediction…
Almost all of that is narrow, single purpose machine learning, computer vision, speech recognition and optimisation - the AI field as it has existed for 30+ years.
I am sure author knows exactly what kind of “AI” people don’t like, so this post just comes off as very snarky “yet you participate in it” kind of argument.
Those things have been called AI long before 2022. In university I took a course whose name translates to “introduction to artificial intelligence” and while I don’t remember a lot about it, I do remember that one of the things we learned about there was neural networks.
I didn’t read it as snarky, I more got the impression that he prefers to be technically correct (in good faith, while also probably being tired of the bullshit). And I get the disconnect–people might expect a straight-forward “no-AI” policy, where everyone currently understands what that means, but I can also understand his concern of being locked into something that may some day return to our more broad understanding of the word.
I have no idea if the author is on the spectrum or not, but as someone who likely is, I get the frustration and wanting to clarify. But maybe that’s just me projecting.
Good take. I appreciate the firm stance on LLMs not belonging in the browser itself, while also acknowledging the complexity and gray areas of the entire AI industry. Will keep using it.
it’s so odd that AI needs nuances like this in the western world – it feels like we’re avoiding addressing how AI is being used to fuck things over for the rich in the west and i suspect it’s because we don’t want to address how it’s being used in the east and leading AI to being embraced as a result.
I don’t use Waterfox but if I did, this blog post would not make me feel particularly good about continuing to use it. It’s not so much what they did say but more what they didn’t say.
Does this mean Waterfox is slop?
Apart from my detestation of the overuse of this word, no, it is not. Every line of code is my responsibility, the art and design is either done by myself, oftentimes poorly, or I pay someone.
I think someone who wasn’t using LLM code-assistants would phrase this unambiguously. “Every line of code is my responsibility,” dances around the subject.
I think the statement after that just pertains to the art and visuals of the browser. As a musician who doesn’t have art/design skills, I can understand the pain of building something but not having the skills to make it look good visually (i.e. album cover art and promotional materials).
EDIT: Nevermind, I misread your comment. Yes, they could’ve just said “I code everything myself”.
EDIT 2: For those replying there’s still Mozilla code in there, yes I’m aware. I was implying the code specific to Waterfox.
I don’t think they could say “I code everything myself”, because the code base still comes largely from Mozilla, which he has no direct control over. I can see how it would come across as non-commital, but I probably would have worded it the same way.
Forks usually keep some code from the original project
Ok, makes sense
Shitty browser scoring quick points by taking a stance against thing everyone already hates.
I only wonder if they have ditched Microsoft Bing, or it’s still the default search engine.
They’ve had Qwant as the default search engine for some time now
