13 ms·

I have to ask: why, exactly, does it make sense for Mozilla to invest heavily into running expensive servers to run vanity chat bots for people? What's the path

by mort96 2y ago

I have to ask: why, exactly, does it make sense for Mozilla to invest heavily into running expensive servers to run vanity chat bots for people? What's the path here to something which improves their financial situation or browser market share? How isn't this just yet another random service they'll throw money into for a couple of years before shutting down?

knallfrosch 2y ago
In 2-3 years, devices will run this locally.
- dingnuts 2y ago
  Oh, they will? Someone else on this site told me they would be running locally in 2-3 years, back in 2022. Someone on this site also assured me ten years ago that we'd have full self driving by 2020.
  - dbmnt 2y ago
    I mean, the iPhone 16 is already running LLMs locally. So yeah.
  - getwiththeprog 2y ago
    Firefox released a very easy to deploy local LLM around a year ago. https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile https://ai-guide.future.mozilla.org/content/running-llms-locally/ https://ai-guide.future.mozilla.org/content/running-llms-loc... It works.
  - kbelder 2y ago
    >locally in 2-3 years, back in 2022. That's pretty much accurate. Mine's been up and running on my clunky old home machine for 6 months, and I just this morning overheard a couple coworkers talking about the local llms they're running. Right now a substantial minority of PCs could run useful models. Usage is at the stage where it's small and growing rapidly. Early adapter phase, but all you need is a relatively modest years-old GPU to handle something like this model. What isn't done, and probably won't be for a while, is a nice generic framework so we can tie their local llm into all sorts of local apps and processes. The big players all want us to use cloud services.
- nullc 2y ago
  It's easy to run models of this size locally already.
j45 2y ago
Because Firefox has to do things to try and grow itself along with their mission. If they aren’t trying things, they would also then be accused of languishing in obscurity. AI being built into browsers isn’t new. Summarization isn’t novel. It’s not early in the game where resources are crazy high. Summarization could run with a basic low powered model privately hosted. Market share changes based on what browsers do well.
- likeabatterycar 2y ago
  A car with square wheels doesn't grow itself by adding three horns and a bubble dome...
  - altairprime 2y ago
    Firefox the browser doesn’t make any money. Doesn’t matter if the wheels are square or round if no one’s willing or able to put gas in the tank. As many prior rounds of Mozilla on HN have pointed out, it’s completely unacceptable to consider having to pay Mozilla for Firefox, and anyways a few million dollars will barely hire enough coders to keep afloat on CVEs (unlike e.g. Let’s Encrypt, who has a much simpler organization to operate!). So we’re now in the timeline where Mozilla is the liquid metal terminator in T2 trying to escape lava by shapeshifting, as you say, three horns and a bubble dome. Accurately put! And a hilarious image too. We’d best hope that the antitrust lawsuits don’t kill the Google money that’s keeping their car fueled.
    - quesera 2y ago
      > Firefox the browser doesn’t make any money Firefox the browser is responsible for the vast majority (81%?) of the money that is injected into Mozilla annually.
      - altairprime 2y ago
        What % of the money that is injected into Mozilla annually is paid by Google?
mindcrash 2y ago
Because if they don't they will not have feature parity with Chrome (Gemini) and Edge (Copilot). And while not all people are fond of AI, there are shit tons of people out there who do. Which means you automatically diminish your market share if you don't (because your most important competitors do)

by mort96 2y ago

knallfrosch 2y ago

In 2-3 years, devices will run this locally.

dingnuts 2y ago
Oh, they will? Someone else on this site told me they would be running locally in 2-3 years, back in 2022. Someone on this site also assured me ten years ago that we'd have full self driving by 2020.
- dbmnt 2y ago
  I mean, the iPhone 16 is already running LLMs locally. So yeah.
- getwiththeprog 2y ago
  Firefox released a very easy to deploy local LLM around a year ago. https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile https://ai-guide.future.mozilla.org/content/running-llms-locally/ https://ai-guide.future.mozilla.org/content/running-llms-loc... It works.
- kbelder 2y ago
  >locally in 2-3 years, back in 2022. That's pretty much accurate. Mine's been up and running on my clunky old home machine for 6 months, and I just this morning overheard a couple coworkers talking about the local llms they're running. Right now a substantial minority of PCs could run useful models. Usage is at the stage where it's small and growing rapidly. Early adapter phase, but all you need is a relatively modest years-old GPU to handle something like this model. What isn't done, and probably won't be for a while, is a nice generic framework so we can tie their local llm into all sorts of local apps and processes. The big players all want us to use cloud services.
nullc 2y ago
It's easy to run models of this size locally already.

j45 2y ago

Because Firefox has to do things to try and grow itself along with their mission. If they aren’t trying things, they would also then be accused of languishing in obscurity. AI being built into browsers isn’t new. Summarization isn’t novel. It’s not early in the game where resources are crazy high. Summarization could run with a basic low powered model privately hosted. Market share changes based on what browsers do well.

likeabatterycar 2y ago
A car with square wheels doesn't grow itself by adding three horns and a bubble dome...
- altairprime 2y ago
  Firefox the browser doesn’t make any money. Doesn’t matter if the wheels are square or round if no one’s willing or able to put gas in the tank. As many prior rounds of Mozilla on HN have pointed out, it’s completely unacceptable to consider having to pay Mozilla for Firefox, and anyways a few million dollars will barely hire enough coders to keep afloat on CVEs (unlike e.g. Let’s Encrypt, who has a much simpler organization to operate!). So we’re now in the timeline where Mozilla is the liquid metal terminator in T2 trying to escape lava by shapeshifting, as you say, three horns and a bubble dome. Accurately put! And a hilarious image too. We’d best hope that the antitrust lawsuits don’t kill the Google money that’s keeping their car fueled.
  - quesera 2y ago
    > Firefox the browser doesn’t make any money Firefox the browser is responsible for the vast majority (81%?) of the money that is injected into Mozilla annually.
    - altairprime 2y ago
      What % of the money that is injected into Mozilla annually is paid by Google?

mindcrash 2y ago

Because if they don't they will not have feature parity with Chrome (Gemini) and Edge (Copilot). And while not all people are fond of AI, there are shit tons of people out there who do. Which means you automatically diminish your market share if you don't (because your most important competitors do)