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Where does all of this leave the Firefox browser. Surman argued that the organization is very judicious about rolling AI into the browser — but he also believes that AI will become part of everything Mozilla does.

In the early days of Firefox, people moved away from other browsers because Firefox was significantly better at blocking annoying pop-up ads. Now, Surman argues, Mozilla needs to think about what the equivalent of pop-up blocking is for today’s users. “The question that we’re asking ourselves now is: What’s the pop-up blocker for the AI era? What’s the thing that people are really going to want that stands for them and makes the experience of the internet better?”

I wrote a pretty big-numbers post a few days ago about how it seemed like Mozilla was in good shape. But I also wrote that this year's State of Mozilla was disturbing for its laser focus on "AI."

I am now extremely concerned that the org's leadership has caught AI brainworms.

@mttaggart It's been very distressing to watch over time. The culture driving Firefox sure has changed over the years :(

@Cheeseness @mttaggart I don't think AI is really something we can avoid though.

Everyone from Microsoft to Facebook and Apple are betting on it to become indispensable to their users in the near future.

The way I see it is, if it's going to happen anyway, Firefox may as well work on something that allows users to have the benefits of using AI without giving up their privacy.

@ProfessorCode @mttaggart That's not a world I'm interested in participating in.

@Cheeseness @mttaggart Can I know why? 🤔

@ProfessorCode @mttaggart I'm just not interested in bringing that stuff into my life (in the same way that Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple don't have presence in my life anymore).

I often think about how the normalisation of web standards that Firefox played a big role in didn't come about by going with the flow/caving to peer pressure/following the lead set by large companies.