[HN Gopher] Noi: an AI-enhanced, customizable browser
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       Noi: an AI-enhanced, customizable browser
        
       Author : Bluestein
       Score  : 40 points
       Date   : 2024-05-18 15:44 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | meiraleal wrote:
       | Interesting. I was just thinking about a wallet-like app or
       | extension for AI to hold my API keys and
       | interactions/conversations. I think that might be something in
       | the future.
        
         | Bluestein wrote:
         | Go for it. It sounds like a tangible, workable idea.-
        
           | passion__desire wrote:
           | Do you think in future we would have AI based browsers with
           | fluidic UIs to make everything simple for the user. Websites
           | or backend would then provide hints for the fluid UI flows
           | with pre-made flows to select from. Could be the next
           | iteration for browsers. Instead of Dom we would have AI based
           | Dom.
        
             | Bluestein wrote:
             | It sounds cool and horrible at the same time ...
             | 
             | I think some sort of AI use is virtually unavoidable in
             | UX/UI testing ...
             | 
             | AI-based-DOM sounds like an oxymoron ...
             | 
             | ... perhaps only my bias, which considers everything AI to
             | be unstructured, which is clearly wrong.-
        
       | drakenot wrote:
       | Are there any LLM products yet that can navigate websites for you
       | ?
       | 
       | Or perform operations on your local computer?
        
         | rbren wrote:
         | We've got some experts on browsing agents working w/ us on
         | OpenDevin: https://github.com/opendevin/opendevin
         | 
         | For local automation, you might be interested in
         | https://github.com/OpenInterpreter/open-interpreter
         | 
         | Still early days for both though.
        
         | rboyd wrote:
         | LaVague https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39698546
         | 
         | skyvern https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39700013
        
         | gavmor wrote:
         | TaxyAI[0] is not totally useless. Here's my fork using Ollama
         | locally.[1]
         | 
         | 0. https://github.com/TaxyAI/browser-extension
         | 
         | 1. https://github.com/gavmor/browser-automation
         | 
         | 1.
        
       | behnamoh wrote:
       | I might sound shallow or incognizant for saying this, but any
       | time I see traces of Chinese in a product, my radars alert "Stay
       | away from this." Maybe it's because of the constant worry about
       | them spying on western users. And maybe it's because I am not
       | exposed to high quality software from that part of the world yet.
       | 
       | I see this a lot in LLMs too. So many Chinese companies trying to
       | game the benchmarks to show higher in the leaderboards without
       | the fear of any backlash. Is it really a skewed perception of how
       | software works in China, or is it really the case that their
       | culture encourages finding shortcuts to success at all costs?
        
         | Bluestein wrote:
         | I must confess that is my first instinct as well.-
         | 
         | I guess - where posssible - careful code review is one's friend
         | ...
         | 
         | (But, point taken).-
        
         | fabrice_d wrote:
         | You really need to think about your biases. I've worked with
         | teams (devs & non-devs) from China for years and I did not find
         | them different from "western" ones. Some people will do stellar
         | work, some will try to find short-circuits and lie to your
         | face.
         | 
         | The culture is absolutely different, so it may take time to
         | recognize behavorial patterns in one way or the other - as a
         | European working in the US, it also took me some time to figure
         | out the "US way" of working.
        
           | Kwpolska wrote:
           | Chinese coworkers with code review and visibility are more
           | trustworthy than Chinese open-source developers.
        
         | ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
         | It's because you are brainwashed and you cannot think for
         | yourself.
         | 
         | If you're worry is the Chinese spying on you, you can look at
         | the code and double check. Furthermore the US govt spies on us
         | on a massive scale as Snowden showed us.
         | 
         | Second when it comes to software quality they started much
         | later than us but our culture has as much finding shortcuts to
         | success as theirs.
         | 
         | Case in point: open AI killing off the team to make AI stuff to
         | make a quick profit. Stealing copyrighted work on a massive
         | scale to train llms.
         | 
         | So get off your high horse. Stop trying to hide your dumbness
         | (lack of critical thinking) behind an intellectual sounding
         | comment.
        
           | gwerbret wrote:
           | I see you've been on HN more than long enough to know all of
           | what was wrong with your response to GP's comment.
        
           | mihaic wrote:
           | > you can look at the code and double check
           | 
           | Can you honestly say that when a few months ago someone was
           | trying to put a security hole in OpenSSH by making changes
           | that looked harmless to an archiving tool (the xz backdoor)?
           | 
           | Your response is such textbook propaganda, instantly riffing
           | into whataboutism with US surveillance, that I actually had
           | to wonder if you had a real profile.
           | 
           | I then did see that you have actual posts, but imagine if I'd
           | have to investigate the profile of absolutely every commenter
           | I read. Isn't that practically impossible to do? And isn't
           | auditing the source code of absolutely every project you use
           | a few times harder than that?
        
         | meiraleal wrote:
         | I think you are conflating "american" users with western users.
         | Most users around the world are aware of Americans intentions,
         | not chinese. Only Americans think Chinese products are a
         | problem and you guys are investing billions on making this a
         | world sentiment. Without much success.
         | 
         | tldr: Americans are afraid of Chinese people possibly spying on
         | them, the world hates Americans real world-wide espionage
         | system.
        
           | OKRainbowKid wrote:
           | I'm not from the US and I'm wary of both. The US is
           | geopolitically aligned much closer to the EU, which is why
           | I'm much more cautious about potential involvement of the
           | Chinese government compared to the US.
        
         | usernamed7 wrote:
         | It's not shallow, it's well documented across the internet and
         | in their behavior with everything they do.
         | 
         | China is the land of shortcuts and facades. It's part of their
         | culture. See: gutter oil, washing veggies in the toilet,
         | concrete infrastructure with no reinforcement, etc. Even when
         | they respond to natural disasters: it's not to help citizens
         | but pose for pictures to show them helping then bouncing.
         | 
         | Chinese people don't even trust other Chinese to sell them
         | things: so companies often bring in foreigners to sell Chinese
         | products to china.
         | 
         | China is VERY CLEAR in who they are, and they show no attempts
         | to be otherwise.
        
           | pessimizer wrote:
           | I'm sure some people think your country is full of lazy,
           | smelly thieves, too.
        
       | Kwpolska wrote:
       | Is it really AI-enhanced, or is it just a handful of features for
       | AI interaction (like a snippet repository for "prompts" or
       | sending the same query to multiple chat pages) invented by
       | someone who does not have the resources to do their own AI but
       | really wants to get in on the hype? Either way, seems like a bad
       | and overhyped idea for a browser.
        
         | echelon wrote:
         | I don't want an AI browser, per se. I want an AI agent that
         | slips into every pane of glass the platform companies own
         | (Chrome, iOS, Windows) and works for me against the advertisers
         | and attention stealers.
         | 
         | I want an advocate that detects and nukes advertisements. That
         | filters clickbait and rage content. Something easy enough that
         | everyone can install, so we can all be collectively free of
         | this nonsense no matter what tech stack we use.
         | 
         | Imagine if AI became the ultimate anti-advertising, attention-
         | preserving, sanity-defending weapon.
         | 
         | "No Google, you're not allowed to advertise to my person." Or,
         | "these comments are toxic drama, so let's not expose our human
         | to them."
         | 
         | This would be a great new technological era.
        
           | ben_w wrote:
           | Mm. Turn the web back into something you could read on a
           | command line, turn social media back into what I remember IRC
           | being 20 years ago.
        
       | rationalfaith wrote:
       | This looks interesting but 4.2k stars for a js app that shows
       | readily available LLMs is fishy.....
       | 
       | I mean it's nothing ground breaking. I guess the AI bubble is
       | real :)
        
       | tananaev wrote:
       | NoI(ntelligence). Sounds like a good name for something that
       | explicitly doesn't have any AI bs
        
       | xwowsersx wrote:
       | I tried installing and running the arm64 macOS app and received
       | the following error:
       | 
       | > "Noi.app" is damaged and can't be opened. You should eject the
       | disk image.
        
         | hexagonwin wrote:
         | They explicitly mention that in the readme, its an apple
         | security measure and you need to run that xattr command.
        
           | acheong08 wrote:
           | What a disingenuous error message. I like Apple's approach to
           | TCC/permissions but this is quite obviously profit driven and
           | intended to drive developers to the App Store with all the
           | associated fees
        
             | Rodeoclash wrote:
             | Yep, and Microsoft does exactly the same thing. I have an
             | open source video review tool for esports teams that I give
             | away. On both Windows and Apple I'm expected to pay a
             | yearly tax (~$200 on Windows from memory) to distribute my
             | software on that platform. The owners of these platforms
             | make no allowance for open source authors to distribute
             | without that fee.
             | 
             | This is done in the name of "security", as if malware
             | authors couldn't afford to pay it.
        
               | Aloisius wrote:
               | > as if malware authors couldn't afford to pay it.
               | 
               | I think it's the identity verification bit that's
               | dissuades malware authors, not the cost. Having your
               | malware linked to your name and address isn't something
               | most malware distributors want.
               | 
               | Nonprofit orgs and schools can get free dev accounts (at
               | least for Apple), so for some open source projects
               | distributed by one of the open source nonprofits, it is
               | free.
        
           | crooked-v wrote:
           | But what are they doing that's requiring going through
           | settings/xattr, when every other direct download app I've
           | used has worked fine with the right click -> Open to suppress
           | the default error about signing?
        
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       (page generated 2024-05-18 23:01 UTC)