3 ms·

Why? Fully offline translations they've added in one of the recent versions are nice, I've used them today to read a couple of articles in French and did not no

by lye 2y ago

Why? Fully offline translations they've added in one of the recent versions are nice, I've used them today to read a couple of articles in French and did not notice any difference with Google Translate (compared them side by side). Another AI-related feature they promised recently are automatically generated alt descriptions for images that don't have any. Seems like a massively useful feature for the visually impaired.

red_admiral 2y ago
To give a serious answer to your serious reply to my snarky post: I think we're in an AI hype cycle, I don't deny that AI is sometimes useful but it seems like everyone and their dog is trying to add some kind of "AI" to their product now, without thinking through either the value to the end user, or any privacy implications. They've just heard that AI = $$$ and are running with it. In some cases it even becomes one more way to slurp up everyone's data for ads and training yet more AI. Even Microsoft Recall could be useful for many people, but it should have been opt-in from the start. Personally I'd also wish that AI modules were only installed when you opt in, so you don't take up valuable space (especially on mobile) with a massive matrix of model weights unless the user actually asks for that.
- asadotzler 2y ago
  I am responsible for the Firefox Translation feature (with my dev partner Andre Natal) and I'm proud to have introduced a great "AI" feature. Firefox Translation is powered by small language models (and a transformer architecture) that gives you 100% local translation with a minimal of hassle. It's the opposite of AI-hype and when I was at Mozilla building this, everyone was on the same page as me with using AI only where appropriate and not as a hype mechanism. I left Mozilla about a year ago so perhaps things have changed, but IMO you don't have to worry about Mozilla treating AI as $$$ (mostly because it's actually a huge cost center, I couldn't even get budget to train up beyond about 10 languages when Firefox is available in 100 languages.)
  - red_admiral 2y ago
    Thank you for this. That is very encouraging.
  - pabs3 2y ago
    I wish that offline translation system was part of the desktop rather than the browser, so we could use it in every app.
ranger_danger 2y ago
Unfortunately it only supports a very small number of languages, none that I really care about, but also of the times I did try it on a supported language, it only translated the first ~1/3rd of the page for some reason.

by lye 2y ago

red_admiral 2y ago

To give a serious answer to your serious reply to my snarky post: I think we're in an AI hype cycle, I don't deny that AI is sometimes useful but it seems like everyone and their dog is trying to add some kind of "AI" to their product now, without thinking through either the value to the end user, or any privacy implications. They've just heard that AI = $$$ and are running with it. In some cases it even becomes one more way to slurp up everyone's data for ads and training yet more AI. Even Microsoft Recall could be useful for many people, but it should have been opt-in from the start. Personally I'd also wish that AI modules were only installed when you opt in, so you don't take up valuable space (especially on mobile) with a massive matrix of model weights unless the user actually asks for that.

asadotzler 2y ago
I am responsible for the Firefox Translation feature (with my dev partner Andre Natal) and I'm proud to have introduced a great "AI" feature. Firefox Translation is powered by small language models (and a transformer architecture) that gives you 100% local translation with a minimal of hassle. It's the opposite of AI-hype and when I was at Mozilla building this, everyone was on the same page as me with using AI only where appropriate and not as a hype mechanism. I left Mozilla about a year ago so perhaps things have changed, but IMO you don't have to worry about Mozilla treating AI as $$$ (mostly because it's actually a huge cost center, I couldn't even get budget to train up beyond about 10 languages when Firefox is available in 100 languages.)
- red_admiral 2y ago
  Thank you for this. That is very encouraging.
- pabs3 2y ago
  I wish that offline translation system was part of the desktop rather than the browser, so we could use it in every app.

ranger_danger 2y ago

Unfortunately it only supports a very small number of languages, none that I really care about, but also of the times I did try it on a supported language, it only translated the first ~1/3rd of the page for some reason.