[HN Gopher] Mozilla Builders Accelerator 2024
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Mozilla Builders Accelerator 2024
Author : sharpshadow
Score : 51 points
Date : 2024-06-04 18:00 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (future.mozilla.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (future.mozilla.org)
| bloopernova wrote:
| > $100k, if your open source app focuses on Local AI.
|
| Hmph and bah humbug.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| They require "in-person kickoff", but don't say where. I'm
| guessing San Francisco?
| gkoberger wrote:
| "Locations to be determined", but when I worked there it was
| mostly Mountain View. I believe they've shut down most (all?)
| of their offices, though, so I'm not sure if they have a
| physical presence anywhere.
| welfare wrote:
| Local AI?
|
| Why stop there? They should expand it to blockchain, 3d printing,
| VR and quantum computing to make sure it really tickles the
| executives' imagination...
| gkoberger wrote:
| AI is very different than the others you listed. Yes, Mozilla
| chases trends too easily, and I'm the first one to say that
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10698997).
|
| But I don't understand why people think AI can be lumped into
| the same category as VR/3D printing/blockchain/etc. It's
| clearly going to change the world, and in 200 years we'll look
| back on it the same way we saw the invention of electricity.
| (You know, assuming we're still around as a species).
|
| To me, it's so weird to watch people dunk on AI for
| hallucinating a bit or because some CEOs hack it into their
| product in unfulfilling ways. Look how bad image generation was
| just a year ago (fuzzy and mushy), and now we have movie clips
| that are almost studio quality (but generated in minutes).
| OtomotO wrote:
| But it's not... it's just ML rebranded.
|
| It's impressive, but these days mostly hype
| gkoberger wrote:
| I don't know how you can say that. We passed the Turing
| test within the past year, and nobody even noticed because
| that now seems like such a low bar for where we'll be in a
| few years.
|
| ML is an important component of AI, but it's not a simple
| "rebrand". I get that it's easy to think of it as marketing
| hype, because there's a lot of people (the same people who
| got on the blockchain bandwagon) shilling crap. But what
| we're seeing isn't overhyped; it's severely underhyped.
| OtomotO wrote:
| > I don't know how you can say that. We passed the Turing
| test within the past year
|
| Easy: Remember OpenAIs claims regarding the bar exam and
| did you read the news the last couple of days how it was
| all bollocks?
|
| Great... it's another hype. It's "just" statistics, very
| impressive, but as soon as it will run out of training
| data, it will plateau... and it will run out by GPT-5 or
| GPT-6 :)
|
| Then it can learn from its predecessor's hallucinations
| maybe :D
|
| > But what we're seeing isn't overhyped; it's severely
| underhyped.
|
| Let's agree to disagree here
| tcmart14 wrote:
| I don't know if passing the turing test is really that
| much of an accomplishment. Some would argue we create
| software that passed the turing test when Eliza was made,
| which was developed in the 60s. I mean, Eliza really kind
| of shows that the turing test isn't actually much of a
| test. Your testing more of how easy it is to fool a
| person and exactly how intelligent or smart an artificial
| system is.
| gkoberger wrote:
| Agreed, which is why the next part of my sentence went on
| to say "nobody even noticed because that now seems like
| such a low bar for where we'll be in a few years"
| OtomotO wrote:
| I don't believe transformers will keep "AI" afloat for
| many years to come. There must be another technology for
| General Artificial Intelligence
| babypuncher wrote:
| I agree that AI/ML is overhyped right now. There are
| however some practical applications for machine learning,
| even for web browsers. The most obvious one to me is
| translating content in foreign languages. Another would be
| tools that make poorly designed websites more accessible
| for the visually impaired.
| fsndz wrote:
| AI is useful, mostly as a productivity booster. cf this
| article (https://medium.com/thoughts-on-machine-
| learning/where-genera...)
|
| But there is too much hype these days.
| jitix wrote:
| All the while there are numerous issues with Firefox on M1.
| They simply ignore or close them as "works for me" [1] while I
| personally have encountered at least half of these issues as of
| last month.
|
| IMO they should first focus on being a good cross platform
| browser that works well on desktop arm before doing anything
| else.
|
| [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=M1
| itronitron wrote:
| Yeah, I stopped reading when I saw the focus on AI. And I could
| probably cobble together a good proposal, but I'm not willing
| to lump it in with that sociodigital fatberg.
| dralley wrote:
| I get that we're skeptical of every little company doing "AI"
| projects, and we should be, but local AI for browsers already
| has several obvious applications - translating text without
| sending it off to a third party like Google, automatically
| generating subtitles / transcripts for arbitrary audio / video,
| etc.
|
| Firefox like most independent browsers is also reliant on
| search engine revenues. If AI threatens search, then it also
| threatens Mozilla.
|
| Plus Chrome, Brave, Safari, and Edge are already doing the same
| kinds of research, for the same reasons.
| worik wrote:
| > local AI for browsers already has several obvious
| applications
|
| Yes!
|
| The translation engine for Firefox rocks!
| sleepingreset wrote:
| I'm happy I get to live in a world where Mozilla exists. If the
| only leaders in FOSS AI were Meta, that'd be a shame.
| meiraleal wrote:
| Really? 2004 Mozilla or 2024 Mozilla? Mozilla stopped being a
| FOSS leader when they stopped developing Firefox OS.
| jmathai wrote:
| I was one of the first fellows of their WebFWD program back in
| 2013 [1]. I'm sure a lot has changed in the last decade but it
| was refreshing to find partners who were not venture capitalists
| for our for-profit open source company.
|
| Sadly, the other partner wound down last year. The Shuttleworth
| Foundation - funded by Mark - was super critical for us. they
| provided almost $1m in funding.
|
| Both provided contacts for legal, marketing, etc.
|
| I wish we had more of these initiatives which weren't so focused
| on profit.
|
| [1] https://www.mozillalabs.com/webfwd/
| watermelon0 wrote:
| Servo engine should add local AI, so they could receive 100k in
| funding. /s
|
| Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40566289
| neilv wrote:
| > _You must be able to attend both the in person Kick Off
| starting on Sep 12, 2024 as well as the in person Demo Day on Dec
| 5, 2024._
|
| They have the right idea with _local_ AI, but I assume this other
| kind of _local_ is going to be an unfortunate barrier to a number
| and diversity of capable people.
| neilv wrote:
| Was it the word "diversity" that triggered downvotes?
|
| The word has more than one meaning.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| RIP Mozilla, 2024
| Sabinus wrote:
| Will any of this funding create a local AI plugin for Firefox?
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| This is what your donations go to instead of the browser.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Browser royalties to Mozilla Corporation are around $500
| million. Donations to Mozilla Foundation are around $10
| million. The browser doesn't need donations. And donating to
| Mozilla Corporation would not be tax deductible.
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