The AI field was rather quiet, and that most players were busy minding their own businesses.
But when OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, everyone quickly scrambled for their own solutions. This is because the technology allows lots of possibilities, and that it opens the gates to a market that is young, eager, and expensive.
Among other reasons, this is why Mozilla is also jumping onto the bandwagon.
Mozilla is well-established name in the tech sphere.
Known for its Firefox web browsers, Mozilla's products are known for their privacy-focused endeavors and unique approaches.
But with chatbots occupying most of tech's prominent headlines, Mozilla wants to see its own share of the pie.
And to do this, Mozilla has committed $30 million to kick-start a new startup it calls the 'Mozilla.ai,' which is essentially a startup, and a community, for Mozilla to build a "trustworthy, independent, and open-source AI ecosystem."
But instead of creating its own AI product to compete with ChatGPT or Bard or others, Mozilla wants to be the judges, saying in a blog post that:
"This new wave of AI has generated excitement, but also significant apprehension. We aren’t just wondering What’s possible? and How can people benefit? We’re also wondering What could go wrong? and How can we address it? Two decades of social media, smartphones and their consequences have made us leery."
This is because AI is seeing immensely fast growth across many sectors.
And with many other technologies depend on it, Mozilla said that "AI has seized the public’s attention like Netscape did in 1994, and the iPhone did in 2007."
Mozilla doesn't want to miss out on it.
With Mozilla.ai, Mozilla wants to bring together people from different fields to collectively work on creating a trustworthy and independent AI ecosystem that will benefit everyone.
According to Mozilla in another announcement, the stakes include:
- Privacy: this includes personal data that powers everything from traffic maps to targeted advertising. Trustworthy AI should let people decide how their data is used and what decisions are made with it.
- Fairness: AI can be biased and this affects its decision making. To effectively address discrimination, Mozilla wants to look closely at the goals and data that fuel AI products.
- Trust: Algorithms can direct users towards extreme, misleading content. Overhauling these content recommendation systems could go a long way to curbing misinformation.
- Safety: Experts have raised the alarm that AI could increase security risks and cyber crime. Platform developers will need to create stronger measures to protect our data and personal security.
- Transparency: Automated decisions can have huge personal impact, yet the reasons for decisions are often opaque. Breakthroughs in explainability and transparency to protect users are needed.
And here, Mozilla is approaching "the fight for trustworthy AI" in three key ways:
- Systems change image.
- Companies accountable image.
- Trustworthy AI innovations image.
"The need for this work is urgent," said Mozilla, adding in another blog post, that "AI is no longer our future, but our present."
This is because many people have yet to fully understand how AI regularly touches their lives, and that they're literally "powerless in the face of these systems."
With Mozilla.ai, Mozilla wants to make sure that "we all understand that we can and must have a say in when machines are used to make important decisions."