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heresie-dabord
stronglikedan
> but the result was a bad US-American impersonation of British ("a'waight guv'nor apples and pears" etc etc)
sounds like adversarial mode mocking
ilaksh
If that was a good argument to not support an LLM feature, then it would be a reason to not add it to any platform API. And yet, it has been added to numerous platforms already.
Different models are just a core aspect of how the technology works.
It's like a canvas can have different possible width and height depending on the device or it's orientation. Or the geolocation API giving more or less accuracy depending on the device. Or Speech Synthesis sounding different depending on the device.
This is really just anti-AI sentiment rather than being constructive.
For now, it needs a permissions UI if it doesn't already have one. And maybe at some point they will add a n IQ level like low, medium, high or something. But developers are going to rely on the specific model 90% of the time anyway if they care about it.
What's going to change is really just that the AI hatred will die down some as people realize how much it helps them, and people will realize not having this feature in Firefox is a failure for personal data autonomy.
And the TOU that are related in Chrome being problematic is an argument FOR Firefox to add this feature, without problematic model terms.
foolswisdom
The important part was the following paragraph(s) that explained why this coupling is a compelling problem. It's not the same as just having a platform API.
nemomarx
We have different gps reliability per device because they have actual hardware doing that.
Why exactly couldn't models, iq levels, tuning and system prompts be interchangeable in an API for this? Why not let users and devs pick which model to bring or point to one they're paying for, or what have you?
I don't see a world where 90 percent of users of this API pick the same underlying model. It doesn't seem like there's any kind of centralization with ai like that yet.
ilaksh
And I didn't suggest they would necessarily select the same model.
swyx
^ didnt realize who posted the opposition - this is Jake Archibald, a longtime googler on the Chrome team, now joining Mozilla and posting opposition to the Chrome API. no wonder the criticism is so well argued. most be a relief to not have to toe the party line on this one.
jaffathecake
Aww thanks! To be fair I didn't toe the party line when I was at Google (imo). Although, that caused me increasing amount of grief internally, until I left. From what I hear, things have gotten exponentially worse in that regard for folks still on the team.
tuesdaynight
Hey, Jake, not related with your post, but I just want to say that HTTP203 were one of the best web dev content that I've ever consumed. Amazing mix between humour and tech discussion. Thank you!
jaffathecake
Aww thanks for saying that! I've been doing little videos on https://www.youtube.com/@FirefoxWebDevs (and accounts of the same name, pretty much everywhere). Although they're designed to be short, so they're pretty different to HTTP203.
swyx
co sign, tuning in to you and Das riffing was one of the highlights of my webdev career. bring it back!!
(lmk if you'd like an ai.engineer stage to do it on)
undefined
benatkin
He's very familiar with standards-positions repos no doubt, and it reads like a typical defense against Google rolling something out without getting input. They don't suggest changes, they just try to throw out the whole thing. I think they might be hoping that if it ges thrown out, a collaborative effort will be formed to write if from scratch rather than start from the perspective of the Google Chrome team. I haven't seen it happen that way much, though, so I think it would be better if they just suggest specific changes to it rather than rejecting it.
codedokode
I am against this.
1) This will be a new source of fingerprinting information and this is difficult to fake to fool fingerprinting scripts, so it can be abused for "device verification". There should be no ability to "verify" a browser, and anyone should be able to emulate any browser. This is the most important point, I thought Google people are smart enough to see it.
2) LLMs use lot of memory and CPU time, for many users they would slow down their system significantly, and given current RAM prices, upgrades are very expensive. If the website relies on local model, it would work slow on cheap devices.
3) The API seems to be tailored for specific LLM like OpenAI.
4) This can be used to push competitors who do not have an AI model from the browser market - the sites would break because they will be made with expectation of having Google Gemini model and would not work with other models. For example, the sites would break in national browsers not having an AI model. There should be no "first-class" and "second-class" browsers.
The explainer claims that this would allow the user to process the data locally without sending it anywhere. But why does Google Gemini local model have "Prohobited Use Policy" then? Why should they bother about prompts and responses they never learn about?
While offline LLM access seems like a good idea, the website could use WebGPU for this without building LLM into the browser (or they could improve WebGPU for better handling ML models). Or everyone should use the same, open source, LLM.
MisterTea
> This is the most important point, I thought Google people are smart enough to see it.
Google just points towards the money like other bacterium and beats its flagella until it gets there. I don't know why or how anyone would EVER think Google is going to do something good for the web or humanity.
john_strinlai
>I don't know why or how anyone would EVER think Google is going to do something good for the web or humanity.
i dislike google as much as the next guy, but sometimes it can be good to remember that actual humans work at google. some of them want to improve things for people. some of them even have a conscience.
one immediate "good" that comes to mind, from google, is the project zero team.
eocjeockoefj
It doesn’t really matter what the people working there want. It matters what the higher ups say, as they control the cash flow and consequently where resources are spent.
And, surprise surprise, the higher ups are generally the ones fucking things up because they also need to see those numbers and lines go up, regardless of actual impact on people’s lives.
So yeah, there surely are good people working for Google, but Google itself is not a person nor is it a “good” company. It is evil, end of. And, unfortunately, when you work for Satan, you don’t get to go around doing charity work.
xingped
Sure actual humans work at Google. These actual humans are actively choosing to continue doing a job that makes the web worse. I don't see how "but they're human!" means automatic forgiveness of their actions.
b00ty4breakfast
That some trees in a mudslide veer to the left does not mean that your house isn't going to be plowed down the hillside.
The momentum of the mass-entity that is Google simply cannot be overridden by some outliers trying to change direction.
kevinwang
You probably meant "conscience" instead of "conscious"
pessimizer
Maybe it's also helpful to point out that all evil is done by actual humans, and that google will actually fire humans who don't do what google wants them to do.
MisterTea
> but sometimes it can be good to remember that actual humans work at google.
Actual humans worked at Auschwitz too. What is your point? That I might hurt some Google employees feelings?
dismalaf
The sheer amount of OSS projects that have come out of Google would suggest otherwise...
Stuff like Go, Bazel, Ninja, V8, Dart, MLIR, Tensorflow, Chromium, Android, and countless others I can't remember off the top, plus their contributions to Linux, LLVM, Python, and so on... I can't think of any company that has given as much sheer volume of open source code as Google.
827a
On the fingerprinting concerns: I have to imagine there will be an option in Chrome (certainly in Firefox) to "never download an LLM, turn off all LLM functionality". I suppose I can see an angle where a website could issue a small LLM request to try and fingerprint the model itself, which is another fingerprinting parameter. But as long as it can be turned off I don't see why this is a problem.
There's a broader class of concern here that reduces to the form: "The web platform should not be able to do this." For people who believe this, I think they'll invent any reason they can to push this narrative. E.g.: Well, sure, the user could turn it off, but then websites would say 'your browser isn't supported because it has no LLM' and now the web just got worse for me because I wanted to turn off LLMs.
But this reduces to "the web platform should not be able to do this" because at the end of the day it was the website operator's decision to turn off their website if an LLM is unavailable. Its not really the platform's fault, or the fault of its maintainers, that they built this capability and JP Morgan or whoever decided to screw over people who don't want to enable this feature. Similar to turning off Firefox support even though it would work fine, because they can't be assed to test their site in Firefox.
I don't know how to counter that take tbh. The web is the world's most successful application platform. It is not competing with PDF; it competes with SwiftUI. Of the options presented in front of you, you are hallucinating an option that reads like "we'll just keep the web nice and static and the way it is and nothing will ever change about it, the web is done". In reality your two options are: "We adapt the web to the evolving needs of its users" or "The web fails to serve the evolving needs of its users, and SwiftUI or WinUI steps in to fill that gap". This second option is far worse!
codedokode
> But as long as it can be turned off I don't see why this is a problem.
That immediately makes you stand out, and sites will start breaking, like now some sites (that do not do any 3D graphics) break without WebGL.
> web is the world's most successful application platform.
Also one of the ugliest and poorly designed in my opinion.
domenicd
Fingerprinting concerns here are really overblown. At least in Chrome's implementation, the model version / responses will give you ~2 bits over the browser major version: whether the machine can support the model, and whether the model is downloaded yet or not. (Really <2 bits, since these ratios aren't 50/50 in the population.)
This is discussed in detail in https://webmachinelearning.github.io/writing-assistance-apis....
dabockster
> There should be no ability to "verify" a browser, and anyone should be able to emulate any browser.
Hard disagree. The AI industry has absolutely shredded the various anti-scraping and anti-botting social contracts that were in place prior to the covid pandemic. Like it's now common knowledge that robots.txt isn't a hard requirement and can be avoided entirely, for example. They have absolutely turned the open web into a dark forest.
Having a browser session able to be verified as untampered and/or "trusted" is probably going to be a thing going forward. Sucks a ton, but we all did this to ourselves.
lxgr
> it's now common knowledge that robots.txt isn't a hard requirement and can be avoided entirely, for example
Was it ever not? It's a text file, not law.
> They have absolutely turned the open web into a dark forest.
Only if you have an ideological problem with people you don't like using the things you publish on the open web.
I'd say the web can be very open even without being copyleft. It makes some business models non-viable, but it doesn't prevent anyone from publishing what they want.
On the other hand, I don't think I would call something that preserves copyright at the cost of only admitting "approved/certified non-LLM scrapers" via attestation or similar "the open web".
> Having a browser session able to be verified as untampered and/or "trusted" is probably going to be a thing going forward. Sucks a ton, but we all did this to ourselves.
Who did what to whom?
codedokode
Protocols like HTTP or formats like HTML were initially made to be machine-readable. You humans make your site machine-readable, publish on the internet and then get unhappy when machines start actually reading it.
Anyway, just put a captcha or require a cryptocurrency payment if you are unhappy with bots, but several people unhappy about scraping are less important than billion people unhappy about tracking their activity.
greycol
You're looking at that pre-covid time with rose tinted glasses. Half the reason sites like reddit or twitter offered free/open APIs was to ensure that the bots were being as efficient as possible rather than hammering the sites (The other half was altruistic but that good will is a very small line item to an MBA). Scrappers got so much better at just going to what's presented to humans because these kinds of APIs are no longer common so they had to. So now the lazy option is to no longer check if a site offers an API, rather than to check if it did and save time / not worry about maintenance by coding for an API.
pseudalopex
> we all did this to ourselves
We meant who?
realusername
Browser verification doesn't stop bots, that will just funnel even more money towards click farms which are using unmodified devices on racks.
doctorpangloss
we already live in that world, Google and Apple cooperates with vendors like Cloudflare to make, essentially, the PAT / WEI implementation that they wanted.
austin-cheney
I just reading the replies to my comment in this thread when it dawned on me: They are going to do it any ways and the least capable people will praise it because they are already reliant on LLMs and/or they lack the ability to reason one way or the other.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47960596
The conclusion then is that its time to move on. It is time to think about an online format of information exchange and media play that is better than web browsers. If we are the product then the tools we use should directly reflect such instead of insidiously act as proxies to funnel ad revenue to untrusted overlords without our consent.
anthonyrstevens
>> least capable people
>> lack the ability to reason
Oh, COME ON. What do you have to say about the Prompt API specifically?
matchooo0
[flagged]
benterix
> Browsers and operating systems are increasingly expected to gain access to language models.[0]
Are they?
[0] https://github.com/webmachinelearning/prompt-api/blob/main/R...
stingraycharles
I think this is the wrong way. I don’t want my OS or browser to have access to an LLM, but I do want my LLM to have access to a browser or OS (and they already have).
So they should provide an interface to LLMs, disabled by default, enabled when users want it, and that’s it imho.
That also gives me the choice of which LLM provider to use, rather than being locked in whatever LLM Apple decided to do put in their OS.
I want to give Claude access to the stuff Apple Intelligence has access to, for example.
domenicd
(I wrote those words originally.)
Wow. I had no idea that people would misinterpret what I was saying in this way. I was not meaning to imply it was an expectation of users or developers. I was meaning it as a statement of what was currently a growing industry trend by OS and browser vendors, of shipping or preparing to ship LMs.
By now the statement could probably be amended from "expected to gain access to" to "shipping with".
I hope the team maintaining the project now makes such an update, since apparently it's confusing so many people!
singron
I thought it was clear and am also surprised by the reaction (en-US speaker). "Is/are expected" is generally used as a passive-voiced form of "we/they predict" (obviously without having to specify a specific pronoun). E.g. "It's expected to rain tomorrow" means a weather forecast says it will rain tomorrow and usually not that people want it to rain tomorrow.
I wonder if this phrase has different connotations among other English readers? A lot of these comments are fairly early for US timezones.
wavemode
I don't think US vs. non-US has anything to do with it. It's an ambiguous phrase, whose meaning is usually resolved by context.
"It's expected to rain tomorrow" is a prediction, whereas "students are expected to behave themselves" is an expectation (with consequences, presumably).
In the former case we clearly aren't saying we want it to rain, just that we believe it's likely, whereas in the latter example we are clearly expressing that we do want students to behave.
It's ambiguous because "expect" has two different meanings:
> to consider probable or certain
> to consider reasonable, due, or necessary
benterix
[dead]
concinds
Sure. macOS, iOS and Windows have local model APIs for third-party devs. Chrome is trialing it. Firefox uses models to generate alt-text, but no API.
In theory it's useful. If devs can rely on local models, it's more private and decentralized, they don't need to funnel money to AWS or Anthropic. There are low-stakes use cases that only make sense if they're local (available offline) and free.
But in practice I've seen zero adoption of Apple Foundation Models in native apps. I wonder if any Mac/iOS devs have anything to share on this.
dannyw
In practice it’s useful too. The local translation in Firefox is quite good, and I love that I can translate pages entirely on my machine; without the contents going to another server.
As for Apple foundational models, I think the issue is more that they’re just not very intelligent or good; maybe WWDC will change that; but if you want to implement LLM functionality, you’re better off either calling an API, or shipping a better small on device model.
pbronez
Yeah I looked into the Apple Foundation models and was surprised at their limited scope. On reflection it made sense though. They’re giving you the small part of the LLM capability surface that (1) can run with good performance on all their hardware and (2) works reliably.
It’s not enough for a chat-first research agent, but it’s definitely enough to unlock features that rely on natural language understanding. Seems like a small thing compared to Claude/ChatGPT and the general hype, but still magic in its own context.
getpokedagain
I don't think thus is what was meant. I don't think they were questioning if OS and browser makers were embedding llm features but rather if people want them.
I find many frustrating. I had an iphone previously and the llm summaries of text messages are what drove me to finally drop ios. I have a family member who is undergoing cancer treatment. I can't explain to you the frustration of seeing wrong text summaries when an llm goes wild hallucinating test results when the actual text simply said taking a test. OS basics and communication should be trustable. Not perhaps hallucinations of a small shitty model.
zamalek
AI massively empowers people who are incapable of anything except bikeshedding. It itself is very likely to be a bikeshed (but there are legitimate uses), and it also gives them to power to drone on until they overpower any opposition to their useless ideas.
Everything is increasingly expected to gain bikesheds.
Can't wait for the CVEs.
anthonyrstevens
>> people who are incapable of anything except bikeshedding
The amount of insulting language directed at people who actually have an open mind about AI and AI tooling is frustrating. Can you all just please address the merits of the topic of the post instead of making every AI-related post on HN an excuse to vent about your own particular worldview and insult people who don't necessarily agree?
zamalek
Platform support for AI has as much place in a browser as it does in Notepad. This isn't about being open-minded at all. I have written multiple MCPs, I use it daily, I am not in the crowd who "don't have an open mind." This outright non-feature is a significant source of issues, least of which is fingerprinting.
Make an AI browser extension. Done.
Shoving AI into anything where it can go is not having an open mind about things, it's nothing more shoving AI into anything where it can go.
On the inverse, can you provide a single reason why this API should exist which is isn't something that obviously erupted from an LLM? Again:
> Browsers and operating systems are increasingly expected to gain access to language models.
God help people if they have to copy their prompt from ChatGPT to Claude.
noirscape
It's the typical "cart before the horse" kind of corporate tech talk. It's pretty standard if Silicon Valley wants to sell shit that nobody actually wants; they just assume that people will want it, regardless whether or not they actually want it. Most of the tech press is too obsessed with retaining their "access" to actually be critical of this sort of thing, and most of the regular press doesn't care enough to actually investigate.
We've seen this sort of song and dance before, crypto jumps to mind. Remember when social media sites suddenly were all about those hexagonal avatars? Most of this stuff is really in that same vein.
(Which to be clear, users don't want this. AI pushes by pretty much all recent user feedback metrics are largely tiring out users and reek of corporate desperation to sell shit. It's only a very specific subsection of Silicon Valley that wants to stuff AI in everything like this.)
stingraycharles
I think the resentment for Copilot is pretty much universal. People like AI, when it’s not forced upon them.
A lot of these products feel unguided by an “everything must become AI” FOMO movement, rather than actual thoughtful integrations.
PearlRiver
Stuff like Google Lens is nice. It solves an actual problem (me looking at Japanese and having a seizure).
pwdisswordfishq
Apparently the browser API surface is not obscenely wide enough.
clscott
Those exact words are the positioning statement (start the second paragraph) of the document you linked.
What are you trying to say?
benterix
Their whole argument is based on this sentence. So I'd expect some rationale. Instead, they provide as "example" links to Google, Microsoft and Apple. The funny thing is that the one by MS is probably the most criticized one, with the company partly backpedaling on it. And Apple is often criticized by LLM aficionados for being quite conservative. Google is the one proposing it.
So my question is: are browsers and operating systems really expected to gain access to language models? If so - by whom: the users or LLM vendors like Google?
loloquwowndueo
That “are expected” is a euphemism for “are shoehorning AI in and trying to shove it down users’ throats”. Whereas the truth is nobody (actual end users, that is) wants it.
I hate having to “dodge” all the AI-enabled controls my phone (iOS) is sprouting - I don’t need that shit, but there’s also no alternative.
walletdrainer
> What are you trying to say?
GP is clearly asking ”Are they?”
raincole
Browsers: Chrome (proposed this Prompt API)
Operating Systems: Windows (built-in Copilot), MacOS, iOS (Apple Intelligence)
So it's >90% desktop browser and OS, plus >30% mobile OS.
Yes, I think it's very safe to say "browsers and operating systems are increasingly expected to gain access to language models."
kirb
These features are enabled by default, and in the case of iOS/macOS, desktop Chrome, probably also Copilot+ PCs, download 4 - 7 GB local models without properly explaining this to users. This doesn’t confirm any demand because if you just don’t use the features and don’t fill up your device, you may never notice.
I think this API is probably fine, but only if the user already has a model downloaded and wants these features. Naturally, case in point, Chrome quietly downloads Gemini Nano without any opt-out except through group policy. Things like this and Microsoft’s recent admission that they’ve overindexed on Copilot features in Windows make it increasingly difficult to trust that users actually want more than a few killer AI features, most of which are just ChatGPT.
Anecdotally, non-technical friends and family members know about ChatGPT and increasingly Gemini, get frustrated by Copilot, and don’t know Apple Intelligence exists.
https://superuser.com/questions/1930445/can-i-delete-the-chr...
benterix
The word "expected" is a weasel word in this context, especially given how muck backlash MS has received. I'd expect a link to a study where users say: "I'd like to have an LLM integrated with my operating system and my browser" and how it changes over time. Then you can seriously argue for "increasingly expected".
deaux
You omitted the clause "by shareholders" after "expected".
bigbadfeline
> So it's >90% desktop browser and OS, plus >30% mobile OS. > Yes, I think it's very safe to say "browsers and operating systems are increasingly expected to gain access to language models."
Doesn't follow. Every case you listed justifies LLM inclusion with a similar "everything is expected to be defiled by LLMs" argument, mine is a better wording but still evasively passive and the "expected" part is still nonsense.
Just don't tell me LLM inclusion is justified by "expected" all the way down, like the bottomless money pit it is.
bakugo
What this proves is that browsers and operating systems are increasingly integrating language models, not that they are expected to do so.
The only people who expect them to do so are big tech executives. The average user does not expect nor want Copilot shoved into every possible corner of Windows, and Microsoft themselves have acknowledged this.
cosmic_cheese
Why is it that Google is fixated on bolting on ever more junk and turning browsers into Homermobiles[0] instead of putting those vast resources towards fixing the numerous structural weaknesses in everything that browsers are already capable of? Why not focus on foundational things that will improve quality of life for everything on the web platform ranging from static blogs to e-commerce to cutting edge web apps?
Really, I just can’t understand it.
zamadatix
Google doesn't build Chrome to make a better web. Building a good browser for the sake of building a good browser is throwing billions towards goodwill while Google's goal with Chrome is to further replace the user's OS as the platform users do things on their devices with.
Google has Android & ChromeOS to directly try to do that but Chrome makes it so the average user using e.g. Windows still ends up in a Google world most of the time.
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afavour
Chrome is an operating system for Google. It gives them a way into corporate environments that run Windows far more easily than getting those companies to convert to ChromeOS or something. So they keep adding features because they want users to be able to do just about anything in there.
bloppe
If you want to go for promo at Google, you gotta launch a prompt API
lxgr
How would not implementing a prompt API make them dedicate their resources to something else they didn't consider important before? This seems like a false dichotomy.
827a
The more I think about it, the more I think I align with Google's API design on this one.
The tight coupling between prompts and models is a real concern. I deal with that every day. However: if your solution to that is to support an API that enables tighter coupling between the model the user's browser has and the prompt that gets evaluated, you will inevitably and quickly enter the domain of "You need to use Chrome to use this site (because our prompts were only tested on Gemini)" or even worse "We don't recognize the AI model you're using (because the website was written in 2026 and the current year is 2030 and they never updated it)".
This is related to the terms of use concerns the Mozilla engineer has later; real concerns. But, if we want browsers to exist that don't require users to opt-in to the terms of use of a specific AI model (e.g. using a nice open source model), its beneficial to these browsers that they can't fingerprint for the Big Models.
Of course many sites will just do an isChrome()-like call anyway. Nothing to be done about that. But yeah I am generally non-supportive of changes that introduce more ways to fingerprint browsers. The upside of keeping the model anonymous outweighs the slight downside of (rarely) encountering weird prompt evaluation output because of a small difference in behavior between Gemini and, idk, Qwen.
hmokiguess
The nice thing about open protocols is that we don't have to endorse or use one implementation over another, yet, somehow, the browser monopoly continues to be a standing dilemma.
There are nice projects, like ungoogled chromium, tor, and many more, but I find the biggest issue is that there isn't a voice out there for the average person and a project that connects with the masses.
I think another issue is that a lot of the uninformed users have a strong apathy for the causes and ways the message is delivered, they rather engage and connect with things that are "fun" and want less friction rather than freedom and control.
How do we solve this? How do we make the browser ours, by the people, and for the people?
Sorry, I'm just sad whenever I think of this.
Joe_Cool
It's somehow even worse when you compile your own browser. Want Spotify or Netflix? You need Widevine with attestation. Go pay Google.
Your Browser Agent string isn't Chrome or Firefox? Enjoy endless Cloudflare captchas or just a 403 error.
wavemode
> Your Browser Agent string isn't Chrome or Firefox?
nowadays, you could update this to just "your browser agent string isn't Chrome"
codedokode
Yes, how sovereign national browsers (not depending on US companies and not sending data to US) can be be developed in this situation?
charcircuit
As the browser you do not have to license Widevine. This is the responsibility of your OS vendor to provide and license a DRM solution. So for example when you build your browser on Mac it uses the Apple APIs to use FairPlay to handle Spotify.
It's unrealistic to expect every app on the system to have to deal with licensing DRM themselves.
pjmlp
We start by not shipping Chrome with "native" applications instead of learning the platform APIs.
Followed by creating Web applications based on Web standards, instead of whatever Chrome does, and then complain about Firefox and Safari not being up to the game.
franga2000
I really don't see how Electron is connected here. When you're an Electron app, you really don't have to care about which web APIs Chrome implements, you can just use the native NodeJS equivalents, which will usually give you a better UX anyways.
But absolutely on the second point. A standard with one implementation is not a standard. Regardless of market share, in a market with three providers, if two out of three don't support something, you have no business using it. It unhealthy for everyone involved.
pjmlp
Electron is Chrome packaged with the application.
If those devs cared about Web standards, it would be a pure Web application, or an headless executable, system/daemon conecting to the system's browser.
matheusmoreira
> How do we solve this? How do we make the browser ours, by the people, and for the people?
Simple. Break up all the big tech corporations via anti-trust legislation. They are the robber barons of our time.
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jedimastert
> How do we solve this? How do we make the browser ours, by the people, and for the people?
Unfortunately, the answer is pretty much always "real public funding"
armchairhacker
You have a decent browser. The average person has Chrome. Those who do care switch to the former. What needs to be solved?
> voice out there for the average person and a project that connects with the masses
> they rather engage and connect with things that are "fun" and want less friction rather than freedom and control
Do you see the contradiction? The average person "connects with" less friction rather than control.
hmokiguess
I understand what you’re saying, though there’s a quote that hurts me whenever I try and reason about it this way, which is:
"We must all fear evil men, but there is another kind of evil, which we must fear most, and that is, the indifference of good men”
armchairhacker
You don't have to be indifferent. I think making GNU etc. more accessible for the person who is average except that they prefer control is noble.
pessimizer
The problem is that if there were one, it would be subverted by powerful people with enormous amounts of cash to throw around. Firefox was the people's browser, then it suddenly wasn't.
If you were some paragon of integrity with a ton of money, developed everything yourself, and refused all corruption, you would be called the Russian Chinese terrorist child-porn browser, denounced in Congress, and eventually arrested (then released) during a layover in Germany.
Google would send an opinion to the court vaguely supporting the prosecution but disguised as technical advice; Firefox would pretend they never heard of you or what is happening, and delete all mention of you when posted in comments or on their social media. Ubuntu and Fedora would remove you from their repositories, Apple and Android never allowed you in their stores in the first place. The NYT would do a story about your "shadowy origins" and ask whether a reasonable country should allow a company so unwilling to work with the government or selected nonprofits to be an intermediary between their children and a dangerous internet. Fox would call you an Islamo-Communist anti-Semite, and somehow also associate you with the "alt-right," Dr. Fauci, and "environmental whackos."
After two years, and the banning of your project by most companies and websites, and the contrived failure of other companies simply associated with you but unrelated to the browser, the charges will be dropped. The bans will still be there, and where they are gone, people will informally stick to them. People will not feel like they can put your company on their resume. Any casual mention of you on the social internet will inspire at least a half-dozen hate comments, and FOSS projects will be attacked for ever having mentioned you positively.
If you aren't a paragon, you sell out after the NYT story.
The reason there are monopolies is because they are enforced.
hmokiguess
I guess one real life example is maybe Bitcoin? Would you say it managed to do that in finance successfully to some extent.
direwolf20
Bitcoin was subverted by powerful people and is no longer the people's currency.
austin-cheney
I wonder if this is a generational thing of fresh young people that already cannot live without LLMs versus crusty old people that don’t want to require a super computer just to run a web browser that violates all their privacy.
To me this sounds like the point where people start looking at and developing alternatives to the browser/web.
dannyw
This isn’t Mozilla taking a stance against AI.
It’s them articulating clear and logical reasons why the proposed API, in its current state, is bad for web interoperability.
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ilaksh
Did they propose a specific alternative (non-extension) API?
jedimastert
Why would they? This is an issue put up on the "standards-position" repo. They requested a position on a proposed standard, and Mozilla gave it.
rafram
There’s one obvious alternative:
fetch("https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions", { ... });madeofpalk
No, that’s not how this process usually happens.
aljaz823
Why would they need to?
hatmanstack
So I guess the question would be, "What makes this acceptable Tech". I don't know how you get there without offering some type of "Search" like choice for open models. We all know how that turned out.
Maybe Mozilla can save itself by getting paid to serve Google's model as default rather than another providers. Would replace the revenue stream they lost.
jaffathecake
I think the objection here is unrelated to the love or hate of LLMs. It's about the viability of this particular proposed open web API.
I personally use LLMs for coding assistance, and some home automation stuff, but I do not think this particular API is good for the web.
ilaksh
Meaning you do not want text generation in the web API at all, or you think the prompt API needs to be different? And if so can you give one sentence on how it should change?
https://github.com/runvnc/tersenet
If you glance at that then you may see that I am for the idea of leaner alternatives to the current web platform.
But in the context of the existing web API which has just about everything and the whole kitchen sink in it (hundreds of sub-APIs), I do not think it will really help anyone at this point just just stop adding features, especially major ones.
The web is basically an overlay operating system and has been for many years.
jedimastert
> Meaning you do not want text generation in the web API at all, or you think the prompt API needs to be different?
Not OP but I think you are misunderstanding the interaction as a whole here. The Chromium team made a proposal, then the Chromium team asked the Firefox team for a position on the proposal. Whether or not the Firefox team or anyone on the Firefox team has any goals around AI or whatever, this response was simply "We do not like this proposal for these reasons..."
How to fix those issues really isn't the Firefox team's job and also wasn't part of the question asked by the Chromium team.
throwawa14223
I do not want text generation in the web API at all.
tomashubelbauer
IME young people mostly hate AI.
kilroy123
The young kids I know who are into tech love AI. Albeit this is from a small sample size.
DaSHacka
Funnily enough, most of the young people I know fall somewhere between those two sides of the spectrum.
I know some actual luddite-tier AI haters that believe it's ontologically evil, and another majoring in Data Science that went to the most recent career fair and told a recruiter "AI will replace you" (I uh don't think he's getting that internship)
And of course many, many, others that fall between the two extremes.
The one thing we can all agree on, is it makes homework a hell of a lot easier :) (well, except the luddite-types, they refuse to use it in any capacity)
mrguyorama
What does "into tech" even mean at this point?
Watching LTT all day? Playing on their iPhones constantly? Buying wireless earbuds?
archargelod
Young people love AI when it helps them cheat homework, or when used for roleplay and memes. Generating "content" with AI - is generally more hated, especially art and video.
austin-cheney
Sounds hypocritical.
bakugo
Do they really? Hating on AI slop is a common sentiment on social media, but remember that the opinions you see on social media are often not representative of what the general population thinks at all.
I keep hearing stories about how homework is now useless because every student just gets ChatGPT to do it for them, and from personal experience, I'm inclined to believe them.
8organicbits
> every student just gets ChatGPT to do it
I don't believe every student uses a calculator to solve their math homework, so what makes ChatGPT unique here? For certain subjects the ability to cheat has been trivial for a long time, yet there was no crisis.
recursivegirth
A little off-topic, I honestly don't think it's as much as the browser interface that needs to be reworked as it is the idea of operating systems in general.
I don't know what the right answer is, but having used Niri/Wayland vs. GNOME vs. Windows vs. Mac... I will never go back to a non-tiling desktop and a none-kb driven workflow for desktop window management.
GaryBluto
> that don’t want to require a super computer just to run a web browser that violates all their privacy.
That shipped sailed in 2008.
rhdunn
What's the usecase for this API?
My experience with running LLMs locally is spinnnig up llama-server (possibly on a separate machine) and then configuring other applications to point to that OpenAI compatible web server instead of OpenAI or similar.
I don't want a web browser creating/running an LLM instance as that machine may not have the capability or capacity to run an LLM instance.
Tepix
I feel that a LLM that runs locally has its place in a modern browser. The alternative is sending your page contents to a server in the cloud with the associated loss of privacy. Of course issues like fingerprintability and vendor model lockin have to be taken into account. It seems to be too early to carve things in stone, so I agree with Brian Grinstead and the others.
wavemode
The alternative is that web pages just don't run inference? Why is that something a web page should expect to have a right to? If you want to burn a bunch of GPU heat, spend it on your own servers, not my computer.
Either way, if this does happen I definitely hope it gets put behind a brower permission.
isodev
Google on their proposal:
> Browsers and operating systems are increasingly expected to gain access to language models.
I think this is only true amongst “AI all the things” folks. Both tech and non-tech people around me are more focused on turning these features off. Some even avoid sensitive actions like banking from LLM infused browsers.
So I think Mozilla is right to object. This API is not in the interest of the user/agent.
OuterVale
Extremely glad to see Mozilla taking a stance here.
alex_duf
28th of april 2025, isn't this before mozilla added lots of AI feature in their browser?
Vinnl
This is the specific position posted today/yesterday: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1213#i...
madeofpalk
The objection is not anti-AI. It’s anti this specific API, for nuanced web compatibility reasons.
jaffathecake
Sigh, when I posted this, I linked to https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1213#i... (which was posted 11 hours ago). Unfortunately someone changed the link.
nicman23
features that are opt in are ok. anti features that are opt out is not ok
ilaksh
Archibald is anti-AI. 70+% of his public statements have demonstrated that.
He is more or less aligned with the current most common sentiment in the west which is largely publicly against AI.
But realistically it's just slow adaptation, network effects, etc.
To give an example, before the MLB rolled out the Automated Ball Strike system this year, last year maybe 65+% of the sentiment in discussions about it was negative or in some cases just neutral.
Now that it has rolled out, 95% of the sentiment online about ABS is positive. The main comment by far is, why didn't they do this before, and why don't they do it automatically on all pitches now.
There are certain cognitive and informational flow limitations in society that will cause this to be delayed, just like all major technological advancements.
But once it rolls out, the perspective you hear online will be about digital sovereignty/personal data autonomy, now we aren't required to send our data to an external provider for AI, why wasn't this available before. People will probably assume it was blocked because it reduced a major source of data for advertising or something.
And overall AI and robotics in the future will be seen as the greatest enabling factor for increased equality in society.
It's really just this underlying dislike of and disrespect for technology that much of the western public has. Which may turn out to be one of the reasons that we lose our de facto leadership position in the world.
jaffathecake
It's fun that I get to be called both "anti-AI" and an "AI shill" by people on the internet depending on the day of the week.
ilaksh
You're a politician. The sentiment leans anti in this cultural context at this time and so do your statements overall, such as if we look at this one and the rest and tally each one as positive or negative. Underlying you are more anti-AI than neutral. So your reply may have been technically true but it was deliberately misleading.
But you haven't really made a technical argument because your objection is not really technical. It's a type of politics.
It's obviously extremely extremely useful to have a simple API for accessing an LLM. It needs permissions like most things and the ability to limit download sizes/specific or maybe block use of external services if desired.
But anyway people will just fall back to a slightly worse alternative like a wrapper around WebLLM (that wraps WebGPU).
It's probably not politically feasible for you to take a different stance anyway.
glenstein
>To give an example, before the MLB rolled out the Automated Ball Strike system this year, last year maybe 65+% of the sentiment in discussions about it was negative or in some cases just neutral.
MLB's ABS does not use AI for its ball tracking. And it has specific payoffs particular to its context from four years of testing and wiel defined limits on use cases that don't necessarily generalize to issues surrounding AI and it's tradeoffs.
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The objections seem clear: tight-coupling of prompts to models, and model neutrality in the TOU.
From https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1213 :
"A personal example: I created a system prompt for creating announcements for a home automation system. The Gemini model I was using initially responded in a very US-American way, which didn't fit the British voice of my speaker. I told the model, via the system prompt, that the output was being spoken in a British voice, but the result was a bad US-American impersonation of British ("a'waight guv'nor apples and pears" etc etc), so I had to iterate further to 'tone it down' and speak actual British.
In this process, the system prompt becomes tailored to the model. Other models will have different quirks. Things added to the system prompt for one model may be an overcorrection for another."