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Here’s what we’re working on in Firefox
(connect.mozilla.org)
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this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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to be faiiiiiiiir, the way they’re going about it is very reasonable. i’d rather have no AI but, if i had to have it, i’d rather have that than anything else.
The use case they mention (generating alt text for images in PDFs) is something that couldn't work otherwise and, even if it isn't perfect, can be a big help to people with visual impairments, while at the same time doesn't get in the way of the users that don't need it.
If they keep focusing on these kinds of features instead of going fully Clippy like Google and Microsoft are doing, I think it's fine.
honestly, you’re right. I still worry that it could encourage an attitude of abled people not caring about alt text, because "oh well AI’s gonna do it anyway, who cares!", but, really, abled people already don’t care about alt text, so…
In the specific case of PDF most users wouldn't even know where to add an alt text. Depending on how you generate the PDF it might even be impossible. So I think Mozilla has the same concern as you, and that's why they aren't adding this to images in HTML (yet).
Sugar, salt & nicety, gestalt. Such was the formula for to produce the paragon of prepubescence!
If AI object/scene recognition is done locally, wouldn't it increase the memory footprint of the browser process. Also how many objects can it identify if its run on a modest 4-8 GB RAM system? One more question is would they ever introduce anonymised telemetry for these generations?
If it works anything like Firefox Translations does, the model is only downloaded on-demand, so it wouldn't affect your browser usage if you don't use the feature.
The state of the art for small models is improving quite dramatically quite quickly. Microsoft just released the phi-3 model family under the MIT license, I haven't played with them myself yet but the comments are very positive.
Alternately, just turn that feature off.
If Firefox uses even more memory it'll bend the memory-time continuum so much it becomes a memory singularity.
The concept of memory ceases to exist at the boundary to the Firefox process. What happens beyond it is unknown, except that no matter how much memory you throw at it, none ever gets out.
It is said that, Nolan was using Firefox when he got the idea for interstellar.