Excerpt:
Google’s own Nano model will become the default and that developers will standardize on it in an effort to make the non-deterministic responses of an AI model more predictable. That tendency, he argues, will create pressure for Apple and Mozilla to license Nano, for the sake of a common user experience.
Perhaps more significantly, Archibald notes that using the Prompt API requires agreeing to Google’s Generative AI Prohibited Uses Policy, which prohibits activities that are not necessarily illegal, like generating “disturbing” content.
“This seems like a bad direction for an API on the web platform, and sets a worrying precedent for more APIs that have [browser]-specific rules around usage,” he said.
Finally, Archibald argues that Google misrepresented demand for the API by cherry-picking a few social media posts and calling that a groundswell of developer support.
“The intent to ship on blink-dev states web developers as ‘Strongly positive,’ and links to the explainer for evidence,” he wrote. “The evidence provided there does not seem to fit the claim.”
10·1 month ago- Yes, it would allow any website to run a local LLM. Maybe the browser would prompt you to confirm though. Not sure about that.
- Browser makers have worked for decades to make browsers standardized and compatible. As the article and the excerpt says, users and website developers will want a standard experience between Chrome and Firefox. If they rely on LLMs to perform functional work, like a semantic search function, they would want browsers to be roughly the same. Different models can vary tremendously depending on the tasks. Web developers aren’t just going to use this for a typical chat bot, they are going to use it for intermediate tasks as part of other functionality. So Firefox would be pressured to provide that consistency by adopting the specific model that Google chooses.