I don’t think it’s the right approach at all. Mozilla has been taking some incredibly dubious steps these past few years, when we need them to be the bastion of the free and open internet. They shouldn’t be refocusing on a bullshit technology they don’t have the resources to keep up with.

The goal of the big AI companies isn’t to provide a good and helpful product. They’re jamming it in every nook and cranny hoping they’ll find a niche where users get hooked on it. Then once they’ve become essential, and they control it, they can do whatever they wish.

My biggest worry here is not OpenAI. It’s Google, with Meta a close second. Google holds a significant stake in so many markets. They control one of the most used operating systems on the market. They control one of the biggest email services. They control the most used search engine. They control the browser with the highest market-share.

Google effectively has the ability to fully control information. All the way from how you access it, to what you access. This thought should be terrifying to anyone.

Firefox isn’t entirely under Google’s control. If Google decides to do something shitty with Chromium, like oh I don’t know, phasing out Manifest V2, Mozilla and Firefox isn’t beholden to follow suit. Unlike every other Chromium based browser. Now, that’s just one example of things they could do, but they could do literally anything to the web-standard, and if they’re the only player on the market, the open web is fucked.

Without the web, what do we do? The web connects billions in ways both meaningful, and not. It democratises information. Wikipedia for example would be entirely impossible without the web. This platform we’re on right now wouldn’t exist without a free and open web.

That’s what Mozilla should be working to protect.

What in the absolute fuck are you on about?

these tools are here to stay

I keep hearing this. What the fuck does that mean? They’re stupid and useless and harmful but they’re “here to stay” so…what, we should embrace them? Fuck no.

Boycotting AI is a really naive idea that’s just a way for people to signal group membership.

I am not “boycotting” AI anymore than I am boycotting raw sewage as nutrition.

Saying I hate AI and I’m not going to use it is really trending and makes people feel like they’re doing something meaningful, but it’s just another version of trying to vote the problem away. It doesn’t work.

It absolutely does. Ask Dell.

The real solution is to roll up the sleeves and built an a version of this technology that’s open, transparent, and community driven.

No, the solution is to educate the general populace about the extreme harms of AI on our economy and our environment and our sovereignty and our education and to show them that we’re getting absolutely nothing in exchange except for lining the pockets of CEOs and twist the arm of the gov to get involved in some sort of regulation…

So: Are you in?

I’m out.