"On by default unless you run down a setting buried in a menu" is the thinnest type of optional in computing.

Not sure what you mean by "will it operate in the background"? The current (and planned) features collect no data. They "operate" when you use them. Disabling them will remove them from the UI.

What he wrote doesn't seem ambiguous on this at all. But we'll see.

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 don't see why there is a big outrage. Sure I'm not a fan of the AI features and I certainly will disable them but it's tot like they're forced upon me. Some people like (want) AI in the browser and good for them, this makes the browser better and easier to use for them. For me, it doesn't change my experience at all

(Commented this separately on purpose)

You don’t need LLMs for that. An iPhone is plenty powerful enough for image recognition and text classification.

That’s sorta the funny thing about AI. There’s tons of potential, but it’s just unimplemented. Even on PC, you pretty much have to have some Nvidia GPU and fight pip setting up python repos to get anything working.

I’d like a AI feature that bounces back on any ads or intrusive crap including propaganda. But AI is being pushed by the same people so if it happens it won’t be genuine and it will just evolve to give the illusion of not being pushed.

FF, any browser, any social media platform , I can select ‘I don’t wanna see this’ or go adjust settings to disable but nah, an update later and it’s back, or it comes back under another form.

It’s still manipulation. And I can’t trust it to manipulate ever.

you don't even need AI for that and can do it on your phone. Piefeed for example asks you when initially setting up an account "Hey do you want to see stuff about Trump, Musk, etc? no? cool we won't show you that" and that's it. works great.

I would use it to block all the people whining about AI

Can’t wait to power browse.

The last feature is the mildly interesting one, but in my experience just not useful enough to do much, even on specific browsing finetunes or augmented APIs.

I guess shake to summarize is mildly interesting, but not really? I simply can’t trust it. And I can just paste the (much more concise) relevant text into a chat window and get a much better answer.

So, nothing.

Apparently it lets you chat with an AI agent to power-browse the internet.

... I feel I have an idea of what this means, but it still breaks my brain just a little bit.

Translation and screen reader have been a solved thing for a while, no “AI” browser necessary. I’m all for nice features, but bolting in a chat bot that phones home with activity data ain’t one of them.