After the controversial news shared earlier this week by Mozilla’s new CEO that Firefox will evolve into “a modern AI browser,” the company now revealed it is working on an AI kill switch for the open-source web browser.
On Tuesday, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo was named the new CEO of Mozilla Corporation, the company behind the beloved Firefox web browser used by almost all GNU/Linux distributions as the default browser.
In his message as new CEO, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo stated that Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software while remaining the company’s anchor, and that Firefox will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.
What was not made clear is that Firefox will also ship with an AI kill switch that will let users completely disable all the AI features that are included in Firefox. Mozilla shared this important update earlier today to make it clear to everyone that Firefox will still be a trusted web browser.
No, go deeper into that mastodon thread.
The dev has a really hinky defention of "opt-in" thats basically "yes we push all this on by default and realize it will be the norm for most of our users because of that, but you technically dont have to interact with it so thats opt-in."
Somehow, eventually having a buried menu option that "opts out" of AI is also part of how it will be opt-in as well? Its a self serving mess of rationaliztions and doublethink, no matter the claim on the tin.
I mean yeah, that's a fair point, and the dev said that themselves, that the definition of opt in is ambiguous. The definition they seem to use is that AI won't run unless you explicitly tell it to, and I think that's ok. There'll be a button that you can press to do some AI action and you can hide it using the kill switch.
I do hope the kill switch isn't hidden behind 5 layers of menus
Thats not ambuguity. AI will be opt out in firefox, which is them abandoning core principles like user choice and privacy.
They can do that, but playing like they aren't by redefining well established terms in UI/UX is disengenious, and cuts right through the "we will earn your trust back" messaging made by the same dev.
A feature that will not do anything unless you explicitly press a button to start using it is quite literally opt-in, though? Opt-in doesn't mean "I won't even know the feature exists without hunting through the settings". It just means that it won't start doing things without your consent. Presenting a way to provide that consent in a more visible place than buried deeply in the settings does not make it opt-out. It might be a bit annoying to you, but it has no effect on your user choice or privacy, especially if there's also a way to globally hide it and any other features like it, including new ones that might be added in the future.