Since I’m fairly newb when it comes to Linux and after the recent bombshell about Fedora’s future I have to ask, will this affect me too if I’m using KDE Plasma? Will it be just for Gnome(at least in the begining) the way the article seems to suggest, or am I misunderstanding things?
To be clear! about the title of the topic, I do not want ai, I did not want it in windows with their copilot (one of the many reasons I would never have upgraded to windows 11), I do not want it in Fedora, I do not want it here or there, I do not want it anywhere!
Best case scenario this “ai” is just a fad that we will soon, hopefully, be rid of. Worst case it’s who knows how many years(perhaps/probably even decades?) from any real useful implementations, in my opinion.
But I am sure you’re all gonna tell me how wrong my opinion is, whatever, feel free, the point is I don’t want it; so that begs the question do I already have to start looking for a new distro after I was just starting to get used to/enjoy Fedora?!
Even if, I still don’t want it or need it. I’ve been doing just fine using computers for the past 20++ years without ai, and I can keep doing fine if I’m just left alone and not force shoved that crap down my throat…
Oh, you mean it’s not an official blog post from the developers about what they are currently working on and will be coming/implemented soon?!?!
I expect you simple turn it off in settings in that case.
I think that as AI leaves the hype marketing and enters the practical it is something that we will choose to use. You would, I assume, not be worried by spell checked?
Just a reminder that the moral of Green Eggs & Ham was to try new things even if you think you won’t like them.
I suspect AI is not going anywhere as it’s existed and proven its usefulness even prior to the ChatGPT epoch that brought it into mainstream. As the others have mentioned here, I agree, I don’t want AI on my personal machine that is phoning home about my personal information/habits/etc. Windows 11 may have no issue doing that and making it difficult (impossible?) to opt out, but I would be shocked if we saw anything like that here. Most likely we’ll see things come in the form of opt-in as well as configurable features to tune things to our liking.
On-device AI is an incredibly helpful tool and, as with many widely applicable technologies, you’re probably already making use of it elsewhere. Modern phones have been using it for years, as have graphics cards. In other words, let’s see where things go before we burn bridges over speculation.
Artificial Intelligence
One big item on our list for the year is looking at ways Fedora Workstation can make use of artificial intelligence. Thanks to IBMs Granite effort we know have an AI engine that is available under proper open source licensing terms and which can be extended for many different usecases. Also the IBM Granite team has an aggressive plan for releasing updated versions of Granite, incorporating new features of special interest to developers, like making Granite a great engine to power IDEs and similar tools. We been brainstorming various ideas in the team for how we can make use of AI to provide improved or new features to users of GNOME and Fedora Workstation. This includes making sure Fedora Workstation users have access to great tools like RamaLama, that we make sure setting up accelerated AI inside Toolbx is simple, that we offer a good Code Assistant based on Granite and that we come up with other cool integration points.
It seems you are concerned, about what specifically. This all sound optional, it offers/ enables you to use AI tools but it’s not part of your base os.
It’s highly likely you’ll be able to turn it off and just plain uninstall it. For example, I don’t like automatic updates, so I don’t have them. No need to switch distros for that reason. (Now Wayland… I’m joking. Mostly.)
Yes. That, and as long as the collection of even local data is optional.
This is a different world from that garbage. Just look at the amount of debate regarding telemetry in Fedora and user choice.
If you read the comments to the blog post, it is explicitly said that this will NOT be part of the standard install, but will be an optional extra that you can install if you want to. I doubt I would want to, but as long as it remains optional, fine by me.
I apologize for the wall of text, but there is a lot I’d like to touch on. Hopefully you will have time to read it:
That’s still a problem imo, a big problem! Even if you can turn it off, heck even if it’s opt-in instead of opt-out as long as it’s in the system, depending on exactly how it was implemented and what it’s supposed to do, it still presents a new major vulnerability/point of attack for someone to use.
Here I’m of course again making reference to windows copilot and it’s Recall feature(simply because it’s the most egregious example I know of), if microsoft actually thinks they will ever be able to make something like that safe, I have some magic beans to sell them!! Pst, Nadella, over here boy.
And while I’m fairly certain, hopeful? that something to that level will never make it’s way into Linux that doesn’t mean we couldn’t F it up in other ways…
And yeah yeah, I’m aware there already are plenty of ways an attacker can really mess you up if he trully wants to(especially if you’re not careful enough with what you download/install or where you surf on the net) and some issues might even be totally out of your control because they are baked into the hardware or some shit(anyone remember the Spectre and Meltdown xmas gifts?); but that doesn’t mean we should make it even easier for them!!!..
In other words the only way I would kinda, maybe be ok/feel safe with ai in Linux is not only if you can turn it off, not only if it’s opt-in, not only if you can uninstall it like @rb2021 mentioned, but if it’s something that doesn’t come with the system by default at all and you have to install separately yourself, and ideally if installing it isn’t even something you can do easily with/through dnf or the Discover store and instead it’s something you have to use a special install .iso for(like a Fedora Everything AI special version) and you have to choose to add it during the OS install process.
Yeah, I know, I used that mostly for the comedic effect and because I really like how it sounds(I guess there’s still a 4 year old inside me somewhere…). And I did give it a few tries along the way mate, I tried some image generation and perplexity more recently to help me with an issue I was having being new to Linux and all, and after wasting enough time(imo) on them the end result wasn’t all that far from the good old
As far as that goes I’ve actually actively tried really hard to stay away from ai, and even in the rare cases where I use FSR in a game or something like that, it is still the last/worst case scenario thing that I turn to.
So while it’s certainly possible it’s still baked into stuff I’m using and I don’t even have a clue about, the chances are slim-er with me then with a regular person.
Heck I don’t even use spell check(assuming you consider that ai) like @barryascott mentioned above.
Speaking of, if I didn’t make it clear enough before let me tell you exactly what kind of mental person you’re dealing with here. While my spelling used to be pretty on point back when I was in school(even though English is not my native tongue) after 20+ years of internet use… you can imagine, right?
So what I do, specially when I have to write something more involved like this, is I open up a new tab on my browser, set it to google and whenever I have to use a word I am not 100% sure how to spell anymore I go to that tab, type it in, check it’s spelling with google(regular google search, not ai), then come back here and type it in.
As such a post like this can easily end up taking me 1 hour or so to write as opposed to 15-20 mins or however much it would take you normal people. Case in point, I started this one at 9:25-ish AM, it’s now 10:39 AM and I am still not done, though to be fair I was afk for about 15 mins or so during that time. Regardless, that is who you’re dealing with…
From your mouth to the penguin’s ears mate!
Glad it’s working for you mate and far be it for me to rain on your parade, but if you’ve read the above you should now know how much on the opposite side I am from you on this issue.
Don’t really have anything else to add in response to what you said.
Would be totally lovely if I could make it to that level one day, but I doubt it as(unless I miss my guess) being able to customize Linux exactly to my liking would involve some coding skills. And I’ve tried to pick up coding several times in my life, but sadly my brain just doesn’t work that way…
So I’ve decided to just try and pick my battles, but ai is definitely one battle I’d like to win!!! I know, I’m probably dreaming as the future(or was it change?) waits for no man or something like that, right?
Didn’t make it as far as the comments, just heard about this in a youtube video, checked it’s description for the link, read the article and immediately went into panic mode. If it will really work like that then it’s almost like what I described/hoped above so it would be cool with me.
Ok, 10:55 AM, done, finally, I hope, probably still missed some things and it will take me even longer with edits.
Oh that is easy, anything you or I could access or download! (and I must say that is quite a bit).
I think another question there is, do scientific journal publishers deserve to lock up the worlds data behind paywalls?
Oh no! I might have just found a positive use case for LLMs!
Given the entirety of FOSS is built upon copyright, yes. Also, given that these systems are prone to getting things completely wrong, I don’t think it’s good for researchers. We’ve got politicians for that.
I am glad you’re here and discussing this part explicitly. One thing I think that is so important behind what Fedora as a Linux Distro is to people is that what we do is community driven and steered by values (or our 4 “foundations”).
To me, Fedora is folks using the same Base OS (core packages like systemd, kernel, etc) and then applying their own build of packages, containers, and other tools on top. More than likely just from a technical level, anything explicitly “AI” will be it’s own package depending on how upstream developers are building their applications. And would be something you can add/remove and gives you the choice to make it your own OS. Fedora does provide a set of packages together that is branded as Workstation or Server, but that doesn’t mean you have to use all of them together and you’re free to use the parts you enjoy. I am chaotic and use some GNOME software while in a KDE Plasma desktop environment!
I also think one of the important things to consider is that ultimately AI (LLMs, NLP, etc) will be integrated upstream - and more packages will support it will be coming into Fedora and other distributions who choose to package that software. What we as Fedora will do is what we’ve always done: “does this align with our values, our policies, and our community?” And if not, we’ll change it and make it work for us. But we guide it by discussion and figuring out what our boundaries are as well.
I hope you stick around here in the community as this starts to take shape, as voices like yours are what helps us keep in mind what should guide us. Constructive feedback is number one.
Nobody can explain how it’s tolerable for mouse latency to increase as a benefit to Wayland, along with the rest of its still-rough edges for at least 8 years to be including as a mainstream default. I’ve had mainstream Intel/NV/AMD GPUs 1080p-4K and still haven’t found a magical benefit
Windows and macOS have consistent low-latency mouse input. Linux had it with Xorg. Apparently Wayland users are content with it being inconsistent to still be guessing at how to time it, but at least we’re getting AI
Thank you, though I am afraid my tiny little voice will get lost in a sea of “OMFG ai is the next big/best thing, and we must all jump on it, go totally crazy about it, and use/shove it into absolutely everything!!!” people.
But hey-ho at least I tried and said my piece…
Since I am the furthest thing possible from a distro hopper(no offence meant to anyone that is) and I like/am content with most of what I’ve seen of Fedora thus far, the only way I’d switch to something else at this point is if I am forced to…
Hmmm, isn’t what regular google uses more of an algorithm and not really ai?
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P.S. Sigh, @ankursinha why the hell did the main post of this topic get hidden too?! ?! I can’t figure out any reason for it at all…
A little help pretty please?
It was flagged by a few readers and Discourse automatically hid it. I’ll edit your post to remove bits that I do not think are appropriate for community channels (“winshit”, "retarded → not OK) and see if I can unhide it.
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