Mozilla is in a tricky position. It contains both a nonprofit organization dedicated to making the internet a better place for everyone, and a for-profit arm dedicated to, you know, making money. In the best of times, these things feed each other: The company makes great products that advance its goals for the web, and the nonprofit gets to both advocate for a better web and show people what it looks like. But these are not the best of times. Mozilla has spent the last couple of years implementing layoffs and restructuring, attempting to explain how it can fight for privacy and openness when Google pays most of its bills, while trying to find its place in an increasingly frothy AI landscape.

Fun times to be the new Mozilla CEO, right? But when I put all that to Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, the company’s just-announced chief executive, he swears he sees opportunity in all the upheaval. “I think what’s actually needed now is a technology company that people can trust,” Enzor-DeMeo says. “What I’ve seen with AI is an erosion of trust.”

Mozilla is not going to train its own giant LLM anytime soon. But there’s still an AI Mode coming to Firefox next year, which Enzor-DeMeo says will offer users their choice of model and product, all in a browser they can understand and from a company they can trust. “We’re not incentivized to push one model or the other,” he says. “So we’re going to try to go to market with multiple models.”

-_-

  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 hours ago

    will offer users their choice […] “We’re not incentivized to push one model or the other,” he says. “So we’re going to try to go to market with multiple models.”

    it could be worse

  • Tonava@sopuli.xyz
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    14 hours ago

    Programs are like socks, once they get dirty, you change them. Do these people really not understand how this stuff works? Even giants can fall when enough people switch to other options

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      They all just do the same exact predictable thing. It’s always the shittiest thing for everyone but the “share holders”. Just automate them away and call it a day at this point.

    • Bahnd Rollard@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      Given what Microsoft is smoking these days, no AI would be a selling point, and Mozilla does not seem to realize they are playing with fire. Their userbase chose their product instead of using the system defaults of Chrome, Safari, and Internet Exploder. Their users, just like Lemmy, are tech-litrrate and more socially concious than the masses. If an alternative or fork appears, with sufficent support, and Mozilla does not put the breaks on their AI train, were all just going to jump ship. We do it every time a new OS is installed, there is no Firefox loyalty, only lesser evils.

      • uncouple9831@lemmy.zip
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        11 hours ago

        It’s hard to imagine being so butthurt at a piece of now-defunct, 20-year-old software that you pretend it still is the default just so you can call it a dumb name.

        • Bahnd Rollard@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          I was in the trenches for that nonsense fixing stuff daily because of them. Oracles wacky tacky shit that kept their users locked to Java 7.21 for a decade past the support date. Bloated language packs and not being able to keep up with basic HTML tags… You dont know how good yall have it today.

          I dont care how much MS dresses up Edge, we know its just Chrome in a poorly fitted suit. The old addage still holds true, Microsofts default browser (formerly IE, currently Edge) is the best browser to use to go download another browser.

          [This concludes grumpy old tech speech]

          • uncouple9831@lemmy.zip
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            8 hours ago

            I can absolutely get behind hating oracle. Not only was oracle always evil, they also prop java which is terrible. And now the family has gotten into MAGA propaganda. It’s an awful family and company and product.

            IE hasn’t been a thing for like a decade though. The war is over. You won. You’re safe now.

            I disagree with your description of edge though. It’s more like the evil version of inspector gadget. Like if he was corrupted by the oracle corporation and every gadget was turned nefarious. This kinda breaks down because chrome is also evil but whatever I still think it works.

    • architect@thelemmy.club
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      5 hours ago

      Power users don’t want it.

      Regular users say they don’t want it but actions don’t lie. They love AI. They love the slop. They just don’t want to be reminded that that’s what it is.

  • tired_n_bored@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    Mozilla is completely detached from its user base. They think their average user is a Microsoft enthusiast when in reality it’s a Debian enjoyer.

  • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    Who is this a signal for though? They could silently add the AI features and rally their base on aspects people actually like. It’s almost like Firefox doesn’t want to succeed

    • Nalivai@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      CEOs have this massive psychosis, they really believe everyone wants this bullshit. I have a theory that it’s because they were always surrounded by yesmen, and simultaneously they hate people, so for them the LLM is the best thing ever, all the constant agreeing and affirmation with no pesky humanity, and they can’t believe there is anyone who don’t want that.

  • criss_cross@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    “What I’ve seen with AI is an erosion of trust.”

    Mozilla is not going to train its own giant LLM anytime soon. But there’s still an AI Mode coming to Firefox next year, which Enzor-DeMeo says will offer users their choice of model and product, all in a browser they can understand and from a company they can trust. “We’re not incentivized to push one model or the other,” he says. “So we’re going to try to go to market with multiple models.” Some will be open-source models available to anyone.

    This is such an out of touch non-answer here.

    People don’t oppose ai changes because they’re locked into a model. In fact most AI products I use for my job let you choose a fucking model.

    People hate them because

    A) 90% of the time they’re useless and the remaining 10 are detrimental to the product experience

    B) Ethical concerns about training off of artists and authors as well as environmental impact. EDIT: or also the general trend of trying to replace humans with AI.

    C) Not wanting to play into the fucking arms race the billionaire class are manufacturing

    D) The time they could be useful they have a risk of being either hilariously wrong or dangerously wrong. And there’s no amount of training and GPU manufacturing that’s gonna fix that.

    Absolutely none of this is addressed by the CEO. I’m sure he has to say this because of the fucking tulip crazy money is in around this but it doesn’t make it any less tone deaf or futile.

  • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
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    19 hours ago

    Of course, this is just what Firefox needs fixing long standing issues, catching up to web standards, process isolation on mobile AI!