> Browsers and operating systems are increasingly expected to gain access to language models.[0]<p>Are they?<p>[0] <a href="https://github.com/webmachinelearning/prompt-api/blob/main/README.md" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/webmachinelearning/prompt-api/blob/main/R...</a>
Those exact words are the positioning statement (start the second paragraph) of the document you linked.<p>What are you trying to say?
I think this is the wrong way. I don’t want my OS or browser to have access to an LLM, but I do want my LLM to have access to a browser or OS (and they already have).<p>So they should provide an interface to LLMs, disabled by default, enabled when users want it, and that’s it imho.
Browsers: Chrome (proposed this Prompt API)<p>Operating Systems: Windows (built-in Copilot), MacOS, iOS (Apple Intelligence)<p>So it's >90% desktop browser and OS, plus >30% mobile OS.<p>Yes, I think it's very safe to say "browsers and operating systems are increasingly expected to gain access to language models."
Extremely glad to see Mozilla taking a stance here.
I wonder if it makes sense for browser vendors to agree upon and ship various ‘standard models’ that are released into the public domain or something, and the API lets you pick between them.<p>The models themselves would be standardized and the weights and everything should be identical between browsers. They’d be standard and ‘web-safe’ like CSS colors or fonts. Probably would help to give them really boring/unbranded names too. These would work identically across browsers and web developers can rely on them existing on modern setups.<p>If you want more models, you could install them as a user or your browser could ship them or the web developers could bundle them through a CDN (and another standard for shared big files across domains would probably be needed)
It doesn't make sense at all. So as a user how do you choose which model to use? There could be 3824 models to choose from. The browser might as well set one as default, and we all know how that goes (see: search engine).<p>Not to mention many other UX questions the come with this, most importantly, how unusable these local models are on <i>regular</i> 3-year old laptops that are constrained in RAM, GPU/CPU capability and likely disk space despite what enthusiasts say here. (They have a Macbook Pro with 32+GB of RAM, reports it works great with xyz model -- fine -- but somehow thinks it works for everyone and local models are the future.)
> It doesn't make sense at all. So as a user how do you choose which model to use? There could be 3824 models to choose from. The browser might as well set one as default, and we all know how that goes (see: search engine).<p>...what's the exact problem here?
The Chrome model requires either "16 GB of RAM or more and 4 CPU cores or more" or "Strictly more than 4 GB of VRAM", and "22 GB of free space" (it uses around 4.4GB but it doesn't want to use the remaining free space).<p>The model is pretty slow on my M4 Pro mac.<p>The API allows the browser to use a cloud service instead, but then privacy is lower. So, more privacy for the rich.
Browsers do not need to force LLMs on their users.
The rate of model development is an issue here. Once there are many cross-origin models, it becomes a fingerprinting vector. Also even the small models are many GBs.
> This will result in Mozilla and Apple having to licence Google's model, or ship a model that's quirks-compatible with the Google model in order to be interoperable. It may also become difficult for Chrome to update its own model for the same reasons.<p>Google is again doing Evil.<p>I am very annoyed that Google kind of de-facto controls the www (through chrome, let's be honest here).<p>We really need to change this. I don't have a good solution here, but it can not continue that way.
Chrome is not that good anymore compared to other browsers.
I switched long time ago and if the doesn't work with basic features I just leave the site out instead of letting it use chrome to control me
Only have yourselves to blame. Chrome made the internet better but everyone put their fingers in their ears about it getting worse at the same time.
Which Internet did make better?
Both, actually. It did make some parts of the Internet better, and some other worse.
Lina Khan's FTC sought to break Google into multiple companies, leaving Chrome alone. Alas, Google escaped unscathed.
So the next anti trust case for the EU.
Chrome is clearly dominating the browser market and now they try to abuse that (again)
It's exhausting having such reflexive thoughtless ragging anytime Chrome is mentioned.<p>Oh no! Chrome is trying to enhance user agency again! Oh no! Chrome is trying to make the web better for end users!<p>Mozilla's concerns aren't totally bogus, I'm not going to try to laugh them out of the room. But their pearl clutching & belly-aching about "oh no what if not all implementations of ai prompts work exactly the same" feels fucking tired and weak sauce to me.<p>This post really doesn't deserve our attention, my my view. But I'd challenge the haters to at least try to connect their reflexive hate meaningfully to what the topic at hand actually is, to provide something worth considering in some way. But that I think asks too much, for what posts like this seek: merely to inflame the world.
Oh no, Chrome is adding something that shouldn't be in the browser in the first place.
Oh no, Chrome is adding Googles own AI as only possibilty what surely doesn't hinder competition.<p>Maybe you shouldn't reflexivly defend Chrome when they clearly abuse their market leading position to push their own AI.
If every browser vendor already has their experimental APIs that can work with different models, it <i>might</i> be a good idea to standardize this in WhatWG living standards (which would still be bad user experience on today's consumer hardware)<p>But if no browser other than Chrome supports this, and only Google's (proprietary) model (edit: plus Microsoft's Phi-4 mini in Edge), it should be clear it's Google abusing its position. There is nothing worth standardizing.<p>And we have seen that too many times -- FLoC/Privacy Sandbox/Topics API, Web Environment Integrity just to name a few. Google has been relentless in using its dominant position to push terrible ideas that harm both users and other browser vendors but help only Google's business.<p>Surprised this did not really come up in previous discussion in <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47917026">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47917026</a><p>PS: looks like Google's fanboys have arrived. Someone better finds good counterarguments, especially technical arguments, instead of just downvoting.