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Technology @lemmy.world

Nemeski @lemm.ee

2d ago

OpenAI wants to buy Chrome and make it an “AI-first” experience

arstechnica.com

OpenAI wants to buy Chrome and make it an “AI-first” experience

67 comments

Validating my years old decision to use Firefox

When a company considers buying Chrome because it could help them extend the reach of their product, they are fucking drunk and need to go home. This would be like buying the state of Nevada so you could put up billboards all over Las Vegas.

You know how we thought " How could chrome get any worse?" well, we have an answer.

Are these fucks stupid? Chromium is open sourced. They can do it themselves
- They don't want to buy the browser. They want to buy the brand and the users. Chrome makes up over half the browser market. Think of all the data they could extract from Chrome users. It would cost significantly more to fork chromium and grow the user base to a point where they could extract anything valuable from them, and that's assuming they'd be successful enough to make it happen.
  
  There is no way Google would sell Chrome. But you can bet at least a thousand engineers are working on bolting Gemini onto it right now.
- No, MS just wants to expand their monopoly, but "MS buying most common browser, after antitrust laws already forbid internet explorer" doesnt ring so well.
- Existing userbase
  
  I like to think if people want whatever it is OpenAI thinks browsers need AI for, the userbase will manifest itself.
- Suuuuure

Great! Now not only can chrome eat all my system memory, it can use all my GPU memory at the same time! It's genius!
- Likely it'll use the cloud for processing, you'll just get really hard-to-opt-out AI features, like "prompt by default" and "AI autocomplete", which you can only "snooze" as they'll automatically be turned back on the moment there's a "great new feature", like putting a filter on by default on image generators to fool the eye that it's made by real artists.

Isn't Google going to do it themselves?

WTF? Just download it for free.

And if you thought there was some natural end point to enshittification, here's your evidence that there's no such thing.

Why connect to the Internet with it then. The browser could just make everything up on the fly.
Got questions about a medication?
Maybe you want to check up on some disease symptoms?
AI can make something that sounds vaguely plausible.
- Why connect to the Internet with it then
  To check if your subscription to their models is still valid of course
  
  And send back telemetry and training data.
- Why use head if you can use ChatGPT. Remove head and start working smarter.
- Browsing the internet will be like playing AI Quake II, you'll think you are in this alternate universe.
- I don't fucking understand why Lemmy is permanently stuck in 2023 with AI
  Using RAG (retrieval augmented generation) results in much lower, almost negligible confabulation rates
  
  Generally speaking, people used ChatGPT back when it first came out, had a bad experience and never fucked with it again, so their understanding of it is frozen in time. Most people know next to nothing about the current state of AI unless you're a researcher or enthusiast. They're completely unprepared for the actual state of the industry.
  
  How do Sam ~~Conman's~~ Altman's boots taste?

I’ve said this before and will say it again. The only tech companies that should be allowed to buy Chrome are Canonical and its equivalents.
- Isn't Canonical up to some crummy schemes, too?
  
  Sure but not by at least an order of magnitude

Sounds like the best thing that could happen to Firefox
- Mozilla spinning off control of its development to an independent group the way they did with Thunderbird would be the best thing that could happen to Firefox.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Thunderbird :
  Operated by MZLA Technologies Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, Thunderbird is an independent, community-driven project that is managed and overseen by the Thunderbird Council, which is elected by the Thunderbird community.
  Chrome self-destructing because of stupidity like AI would only ever manage to be a close second, at best.
  
  Has Mozilla indicated any openness to taking that approach with Firefox?
- Unfortunately, Mozilla is investing a ton of money into AI, too.
  
  Mozilla works mainly on LOCAL AI not this corporate trash like closedAI
  
  Some of their I initiatives are good, like the built-in local translation tool we now have.
  
  A desperate attempt of revenue diversification.
  
  Mozilla will loose Google's deal money.
  
  Look into Waterfox instead.
- Firefox, the software mainly driven by Mozilla, which is heavily investing in AI and ads ventures? That Firefox?
  But, maybe "it will be different this time", I guess.
- this!

OpenAI is like a zombie stumbling around trying to infect everything. We shove it away because it’s fuckin’ gross and we want nothing to do with it, while the bosses that reanimated it are like “well fuck, we made this thing, we have to use it for something.”

don't they already have brave for that?
- What does Brave have to do with it? It doesn't even have ChatGPT's models as an option.
  
  it's crypto trash

This can't happen. Not because I think google is doing a wonderful job, but it's got serious market share now. Basically a monopoly. It needs to leave the hands of for profit companies and be transitioned to a foundation.

Chromium is open source? What a concept...

How the fuck would this be more cost effective than them making their own chrome based browser and not be a demonstration of their over inflated operating costs and company valuation?
If you are paying for a service that is charging you enough to allow them to buy the most widly used browser from a company whose business model is to monopolize data, then maybe you're paying them a titbit more than what the service they're providing is worth.
- I'm sure they're less interested about buying Chrome than they are about buying Chrome's market share
  
  Chrome's user data.
- What allows them to buy chrome is ridiculous investment money, not what they're charging. From what I read, I think they're still running a loss because required processing power is still just so insanely ridiculous for AI.

Chrome or Chromium project?

How to kill Chrome faster, make it AI only. LOL!!!

Yes please

Good thing I’ve never used the garbage that is chrome or chatgpt 👍

67 comments