Comment by wahnfrieden

17 hours ago

You're missing that this is anti-AI activism

I am a computer scientist and have studied AI for over 30 years, I use AI every single day and I speak all over the world about the responsible and ethical use of AI... not sure how that makes me anti-ai?

I am a privacy activist and I strongly object to corporations reaching in to my device, changing the configuration and installing things I never asked for without telling me or requesting my permission. If that makes me anti-ai, then it is a hat I will wear with pride, thanks.

If you don't like that the law protects my position as opposed to your's, perhaps you could lobby to have the law changed, just as I have done for the last 20 years to make these laws stronger?

We should be actively anti-AI being part of a web browser just like that though.

  • Why? The AI assistance in Chrome dev tools is really useful. And I also use Google AI mode all the time.

  • Sure, but what's the point of obfuscating that?

    This article is activism. The re-framing of software that you install intentionally being about breaking your 'consent' is ideological and incendiary. It implies that this is evil. It isn't.

  • Please stop assuming everyone thinks like you. If I can replace even something like translate with a local model that's just a single thing, off the top of my head, that could potentially benefit. I see no reason why these experiments should not be taking place.

It's not about AI. I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't be ok with eg a calculator app shipping a 4GB word processor.

Maybe it’s pro-browser activism.

A browser should render web pages not bring its own AI

  • Yeah, it's already egregious how resource intensive browsing the web can be, between the browser and the content its loading. Why should we just accept that Google will force another performance hit by loading up an AI model as well?

We don't have AI. We have language models trained by rapacious companies on copyrighted material with no concern for copyright violations and with a penchant for intentionally anthropomorhizing their models.

I'm an anti corporate malfeasance activist.

Hacker News and it's underemployed and underpaid user base gets these two confused all the time. I assure you, your tolerance for language models, or your willingness to use them, will have _zero_ impacts on your pay scale in the coming decade.

Finally you should be aware that Google markets this addition as an "anti fraud" and "anti spam" feature. They should have to justify that, I shouldn't have to justify my expectations as a consumer.

  • It's not a copyright violation if courts have ruled it's not

    I have no pay scale to worry about, I own the software I build and don't rely on wages

    • > It's not a copyright violation if courts have ruled it's not

      Courts can't rule aprioi on civil issues. I would not expect the current status quo to count for anything.

      > I own the software I build and don't rely on wages

      Cool. So now everyone with $200 is your competition. It seems like a fools paradise to me.