Jul 07, 2023 13:00:00

Mozilla launches AI function to search and explain technical documents, but some functions are temporarily suspended

Mozilla, which develops Firefox and Thunderbird, operates '

MDN Web Docs ' which hosts web standards and project development documentation. Mozilla announced an AI function that searches and opens documents at the end of June 2023 for the purpose of supporting developers who refer to documents on this MDN Web Docs, but some of them will be temporarily provided Stopping.

Introducing AI Help: Your Trusted Companion for Web Development | MDN Blog
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/blog/introducing-ai-help/

Responsibly empowering developers with AI on MDN
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/mdn/responsibly-empowering-developers-with-ai-on-mdn/

Mozilla pauses error-prone AI Explain feature in MDN • The Register
https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/06/mozilla_ai_explain_shift/

On June 27, 2023, Mozilla implemented a feature called 'AI Help' on MDN Web Docs. This AI Help is designed to optimize the search process and help you find the information you need quickly and easily.

In AI Help, 'Embedding for similar search' and 'Adding generated AI' are done. 'Embedding for Similarity Search' transforms each section of an article in MDN Web Docs into a low-dimensional vector and converts the contextual relationships between words into data to find out the relevance of a given query. Identifying high sections. And 'Add Generation AI' makes it possible to access necessary information using a conversational interface by using Open AI's ChatGPT (GPT-3.5).

In addition, as an experimental tool, there is also a function called 'AI Explain' that searches for code and sample code embedded in documents on MDN Web Docs and AI explains the purpose and operation.

However, according to Mozilla, these AI features are still in their early stages, and there have been cases of them providing incorrect information in response to queries. In particular, AI Explain, which Mozilla calls an 'experimental tool', has been pointed out by users in several cases where specifically incorrect answers were displayed. For example, below is a CSS sample code (top) explained by AI Explain (bottom). For some reason AI Explain says it defines a grid with 2 rows and 2 columns, but it actually defines only 2 rows, so this is incorrect.

We have received a lot of feedback since the release of AI Help and AI Explain, with 129 likes and 41 dislikes for AI Help, with 75.88% positive feedback and 24.12 negative feedback. %. Mozilla also revealed that AI Explain had 1107 likes and 459 dislikes, with positive feedback accounting for 68.90% and negative feedback accounting for 31.10%. Mozilla said, 'We have decided to take a cautious approach. We will temporarily remove the AI Explain tool from MDN until the investigation is complete and a high-quality fix is made to the issue.' .

However, Mozilla's attempt to generate embeddings for documents and use them for AI searches has also generated a backlash from some developers who have an aversion to AI. GitHub says, 'You can't solve a real problem that you can't hire a technical writer to solve. Essentially this problem is a copyright washing machine that saves you money by not hiring a writer at the expense of quality. This is , an attempt to replace the labor of trained and knowledgeable writers with OpenAI's exploitation machines.” “Everything about this blog post is offensive. It is clear enough that it is not, 'some people are angry at Mozilla.