Yeah, on that I'm gonna say it's unnecessary. I don't know what "integration with the desktop" gets you that you can't get from having a web app open or a separate window open. If you need some multimodal goodness you can just take a screenshot and paste it in.

I'd be more concerned about model performance and having a well integrated multimodal assistant that can do image generation, image analysis and text all at once. We have individual models but nothing like that that is open and free, that I know of.

I get that AI has many problems but at the same time the potential it has is immense, especially as an assistant on personal computers

[Citation needed]

Gnome and other desktops need to start working on integrating FOSS AI models so that we don’t become obsolete.

And this mentality is exactly what AI sceptics criticise. The whole reason why the AI arms race is going on is because every company/organisation seems convinced that sci-fi like AI is right behind the corner, and the first one to get it will capture 100% of the market in their walled garden while everyone else fades into obscurity. They're all so obsessed with this that they don't see a problem with putting in charge a virtual dumbass that is constantly wrong.

Apple's "private cloud" is a thing. Not all "Apple Intelligence" features are "on device", some can and do utilize cloud-based processing power, and this will also be available to app developers.

Apparently this has additional safeguards vs "normal cloud" which is why they are branding it "private cloud".

But it's still "someone else's computer" and apple is not keeping their AI implementation 100% on device.

I'm not against AI. I'm against the hoards of privacy-disrespecting data collection, the fact that everybody is irresponsibility rushing to slap AI into everything even when it doesn't make sense because line go up, and the fact nobody is taking the limitations of things like Large Language Models seriously.

The current AI craze is like the NFTs craze in a lot of ways, but more useful and not going to just disappear. In a year or three the crazed C-level idiots chasing the next magic dragon will settle down, the technology will settle into the places where it's actually useful, and investors will stop throwing all the cash at any mention of AI with zero skepticism.

It's not Luddite to be skeptical of the hot new craze. It's prudent as long as you don't let yourself slip into regressive thinking.

Right, but like I said, there's several lawsuits (and threatened lawsuits) right now that might achieve the same goals of those speaking against how it's currently used.

I don't think anyone here is arguing for LLMs to go away completely, they just want to be compensated fairly for their work (else, restrict the use of said work).

You misunderstand the Luddite movement. They weren’t anti-technology, they were anti-capitalist exploitation.

The 1810s: The Luddites act against destitution

It is fashionable to stigmatise the Luddites as mindless blockers of progress. But they were motivated by an innate sense of self-preservation, rather than a fear of change. The prospect of poverty and hunger spurred them on. Their aim was to make an employer (or set of employers) come to terms in a situation where unions were illegal.

Gnome and other desktops need to start working on integrating FOSS AI models so that we don't become obsolete.

I don't get it. How Linux destops would become obsolete if they don't have native AI toolsets on DEs? It's not like they have a 80% market share. People who run them as daily drivers are still niche, and most don't even know Linux exists. Most ppl grown up with Microsoft and Apple shoving ads down their throat, using them in schools first hand, and that's all they know and taught. If I need AI, I will find ways to intergrate to my workflow, not by the dev thinks I need it.

And if you really need something like MS's Recall, here is a FOSS version of it.

GitHub - openrecall/openrecall: OpenRecall is a fully open-source, privacy-first alternative to proprietary solutions like Microsoft's Windows Recall. With OpenRecall, you can easily access your digital history, enhancing your memory and productivity with

OpenRecall is a fully open-source, privacy-first alternative to proprietary solutions like Microsoft's Windows Recall. With OpenRecall, you can easily access your digital history, enhancing you...

^GitHub

Linux doesnt need GNU components at all to be a functional operating system.

Indeed: look no further than Alpine Linux.

Alpine Linux is a Linux distribution designed to be small, simple, and secure. It uses musl, BusyBox, and OpenRC instead of the more commonly used glibc, GNU Core Utilities, and systemd. This makes Alpine one of few Linux distributions not to be based on the GNU Core Utilities.

[Sarcastic 'translation'] tl;dr: A lot of people who are relatively well-placed to understand how much technology is involved even in downvoting this post are downvoting this post because they're afraid of technology!

Just more fad-worshipping foolishness, drooling over a buzzword and upset that others call it what it is. I want it to be over but I'm sure whatever comes next will be just as infuriating. Oh no, now our cursors all have to change according to built-in (to the cursor, somehow, for some reason) software that tracks our sleep patterns! All of our cursors will be obsolete (?!??) unless they can scalably synergize with the business logic core to our something or other 😴

The prize of the competition is what the competitors compete for.
There's a prize and the winner gets it; the loser doesn't get it.

Why is this so hard to understand? I guess it's nature's way of weeding out the losers.

AI isn't a magic bullet. Sure it has it's uses, but you have to weigh it's usefulness to the ideology behind a project and it's creators. Just because a software developer or community doesn't embrace AI doesn't mean they will be "obsolete."

AI is the current trend that is being shoehorned into everything. I mean literally everything. I don't think we need AI touching everything.

I don't want or need AI crammed into my desktop environment. And I surely don't want it interjecting into my filesystem with my data. It is a privacy concern. And many of other people will feel the same or similarly as I do.

AI is a tool, and with all tools: use the appropriate tool for the job.

Gnome and other desktops need to start working on integrating FOSS AI models so that we don’t become obsolete.

lol no thanks.

AI has a lot of great uses, and a lot of stupid smoke and mirrors uses.
For example, text to speech and live captioning or transcription are useful.

"Hypothetical AI desktop" "Siri" "copilot+" and other assistants are smoke and mirrors. Mainly because they don't work. But if they did, they would be unreliable (because ai is unreliable) and would have to be limited to not cause issues. And so they would not be useful.

Plus, on Linux they would be especially unusefull, because there's a million ways to do different things, and a million different setups. What if you asked the ai "change the screen resolution" and it started editing some gnome files while you are on KDE, or if it started mangling your xorg.conf because it's heavily customized.

Plus, every openai stuff you are seeing this days doesn't really work because it's clever, it works because it's huge. Chatgpt needs to be trained for days of week on specialized hardware, who's gonna pay for all that in the open source community?

local models would be at the core of FOSS AI, and they dont require you to trust anyone with your data.

Would? You're slipping between imaginary and apparently declarative statements. Very typical of "AI" hype.

On device Foss models to help you with various tasks.

Thankfully I really really don't need an "AI" to use my desktop. I don't want that kind of BS bloat either. But go ahead and install whatever you want on your machine.

Words have meaning and, sure, they can be abused and change meaning over time but let's be real here: AI is a hype term with no basis on reality. We do not have AI, we aren't even all that close. You can make all the ad hominem comments you want but at the end of the day, the terminology comes from ignorant figureheads hyping shit up for profit (at great environmental cost too, LLM aka "AI" takes up a lot of power while yielding questionable results).

Kinda sounds like you bought into the hype, friend.

Local models WOULD form the basis of FOSS AI. Supposition on my part but entirely supportable given there is already a open source model movement focus on producing local models and open source software is generally privacy focused.

Local models ARE inherently private due to the way that no information leaves the device it is processed on.

I know you dont want to engage with arguments and instead just wail at the latest daemon for internet points, but you can have more than one statement in a sentence without being incoherent.

Great technology is invisible.

As long as AI is advertised as being a unique selling point, I'm not interested.

If you think of specific problems it is better to point them out and try think of solutions, not reject the technology as a whole.

Yes. There a problems with the Gnome desktop environment. Without looking at the issue tracker, I can assure you that AI is not the solution to any of them. Even if AI may be a possible solution to a problem, it would probably not be the best one.

Successful technology is invisible

Long time ago, back in 1995, Steve Jobs in an interview stated that "great technology is invisible". Indeed, whilst advanced technology in its first step is indistinguishable from magic, and as such i

^{Roberto Saracco (IEEE Future Directions)}

You missed the point again, oh dear!
Let me try again in simpler terms : you yourself dont define words, how they are used in the public does. So if the world calls it ai, then the word will mean what everybody means when they use it.

This is how the words come to be, evolve and are at the end put in the dictionary. Nobody cares what you think. Ai today includes ML. Get over it.

Nice try with deflection attempts, but I really don't care about them, I'm only here to teach you where words come from and to tell you, the article is written about you.

Also that I'm out of time for this. Bye.

Good.

The Luddites were right.

I'm not against probabilistic models and the like. I merely try to capture part of the reason they are not always well received in the floss community.

I use LLMs regularly, and there is nothing rivalling them in many use cases.

I used ubuntu until a few weeks ago, where I switched to Pop OS. In this sense, I might be close to the "normies". Yet, I am incredibly skeptical of AI.

It's distinct.

Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via alexa! I love the future!

Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise.

Whenever AI is mentioned lots of people in the Linux space immediately react negatively.

Because whenever AI is mentioned it usually isn't even close to what AI meant.