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Firefox Sidebar Includes AI Chatbot Now
(lemmy.world)
Super frustrating the AI Chatbots are infecting my Firefox browser now. It looks like malware and pretty much acts like it since it cannot be disabled from the sidebar outside of closing this window. I like vertical tabs, but they require so many other options by default. Even more frustrating that the URL goes to a chrome browser link: chrome://browser/content/genai/chat.html
Alarms very heightened.
Could someone please enlighten me on what is the companies' endgame with putting AI chatbots everywhere in their products? (Especially generic ones like this) What are they looking to gain by doing so? And if money, how? Injected ads?
Honest question.
Search is dead. “Content” is dead.
AI is being seen as the portal through which we will access information in future. If so, control of that portal is worth trillions.
It’s a land grab.
This is imo the most succinct way to summarize it.
Are they a 100% sure it's the future? Maybe not. But they for sure won't risk missing out on it either, just in case it does end up being the future.
Search engines are getting increasingly harder to use & increasingly showing just AI slop, ads, or propaganda (ofc Google is at the cunting edge of this).
Not any of current big ones, but in the future I hope I'll be using a personal local open sauce AI just to have it interface with various megacorp AI (eg to do a search for me, or even more dystopian, to eg contact my bank's AI more efficiently).
And no, we have no idea how it will look like exactly, but they (megacorps) need to monetise AI, and with valuations that high (& atm still basically offering it for free or very cheap for individual consumers) I think that means they need to establish an environment where you won't be able to function without a few of the big AIs (they are engineering demand & a consolidated/monopolistic market & when they have it the sub prices will skyrocket).
Mozilla is just giving us (albeit shitty/perhaps unwanted) options.
We are not stopping enshitification & neither can Mozilla (and they as a foundation are trying).