Commit to remaining free of any and all AI tools
Proton, so far, has been a bastion of "the Internet we actually wanted". This is why it was so disheartening to see that the company is now seriously considering integrating GenAI into its suite of tools.
As the tide of big tech moves toward forcing AI tools into the face of every user, the existence of a platform that is explicitly not doing this is a breath of fresh air. There is no reason to "innovate for the sake of innovation". Let your competitors waste their time and energy being late to the party with the 80th, 90th, and 100th AI tools to come to market.
Beyond the user experience, there is a plethora of moral reasons to avoid this AI plague:
- The mass exploitation of human labour used to tag inputs for these models
- The environmental effects of generating power used to train them
- The obscene amount of fresh drinking water diverted toward cooling
- The degradation of information quality, as the human knowledge encoded in language is substituted with statistical approximations
Please, reconsider this. It's been refreshing to use a platform that wasn't mindlessly chasing big tech trends, and to lose that now would give me an extremely disappointing reason to go searching once again for alternatives.
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Thomas commented
Also concerning is the environmental impact of AI tools. AI is great for specific applications, however 9/10 times I've seen it used as of late, it's to capitalize on a buzzword with an application that is not at all improved through the use if AI.
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Jeff Schmidt commented
Seems like this ship has sailed, and so will my subscription.
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Clayton Decker commented
AI is inevitable, and it carries tremendous risk; however it can be implemented correctly. Take a look at Brave Leo for inspiration.
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Jo commented
Here are some things I wanted to add:
-The environmental effects of generating power used to train them:
Depends. A lot of data centers are run on renewable energy sources or on excess energy production. So there's an negligible effect on the climate if that's the case here.-The obscene amount of fresh drinking water diverted toward cooling:
Unproblematic, since the water is going to be send back into the river with +1 or +2 degrees more. The water doesn't get consumed, just briefly used.-The degradation of information quality, as the human knowledge encoded in language is substituted with statistical approximations:
Generally problematic, but user dependent. The problem that you describe arises only if people accept the information provided by genAI as absolute truth or don't know it was generated by AI. If critical thinking is applied to the generated information, the problem isn't much different from trusting something on the internet.
Everyone is using autocorrect on mobile phones, but no one is seriously just tapping on the next generated word and expecting an viable answer.
GenAI is the same, but it can hide it better. -
Tully commented
I find it incredibly amusing that every pro-AI comment in this thread ignores all four of the points I made in this suggestion.
I would suggest that everybody making arguments that amount to "AI is here to stay" carefully consider what happened with the "crypto is here to stay" crowd once it become clear that the only winners in that space were the ones selling mining chips.
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Ae commented
My issue is this: before putting efforts on AI, basic functions should be prioritised, like offline mode for mail and calendar, sorting options for mail, contact and event search for mobile, just to name some.
AI doesn't make sense when such basic functions are lacking. -
Klara commented
Having read through the comments, I can see this is a very divisive proposal. I think I would trust Proton to implement AI in a secure and ethical way, though whether I would actually use the tools myself is unlikely. I freely admit that I don't know enough about AI and the ethical and environmental considerations of it to judge which of the concerns raised in this suggestion would apply to whatever form of AI tool Proton would introduce. I would appreciate Proton releasing a statement which addresses all concerns clearly and transparently, what kind of AI tools they're considering and how users could opt not to use them if they don’t want to.
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M commented
Looks like people don't understand what AI means (AI is not something new at all), and are just scared of the word. It also feels like a lot of you don’t understand what e2e encrypted means…
Our data are encrypted, so as long as whatever AI features they add don't interfere with our privacy, there are *no* reasons to be against it.
AI and more specifically genAI is the next big thing whether people like it or not, if proton doesn't embrace it in some ways, the company will be out of business within the next 5 to 10 years. You wouldn’t pay to use a service that hasn’t changed since 1999 would you? It’s the same here, in 5 to 10 years AI will have completely changed how we write and respond to emails, how we find our files in our drive, how we look for pictures, and how we interact with tech in general. Proton must adapt, and there are ways to do this without being unethical or violating privacy.
It’s not because OpenAI and Google went the evil way that Proton can’t do it the right way. Want a proof? Y’all moved from Gmail to Proton for that specific reason. Just continue to trust Proton to do the right thing.
Saying that there are no reasons to innovate for the sake of innovating means you just don’t understand how the world works. Innovations are why we have electricity, internet, computers, vaccins, cars, movies, and don’t die at the old age of 30 years old.
Y’all need to educate yourself and stop being afraid of changes. Unfounded fears and conservatism always end up with ****** outcomes.
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Clark Everson commented
I actually strongly disagree with this and wish there was a way to vote exactly opposite. The wording of this very much shows not understanding how ai models work. There are many ways they could build their own self contained ai. It doesn’t even need to be trained on user data similar to how the protected model works in tabnine.
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Ben Anderson commented
This suggestion has to be a joke XD No way can you seriously expect an Internet company to forsake the biggest technological leap of our lifetimes. It's like asking a store to commit to not selling products online.
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Mehmet commented
I don't support this proposal. Proton cannot develop an AI that runs on the cloud. Our data is encrypted and can't be decrypted on their servers. So, the AI must run on the user's device (It must be a tiny model since it will run on mobile devices and desktops). I'm OK with that.
However, I mostly agree with what Tully says about cloud AIs.
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Pal commented
I don't support this proposal. Proton can and should incorporate free and open source AI tools into its feature set, as long as end-to-end encryption is maintained. This can be accomplished by processing the data locally on the user's device without leaking user data to Proton servers or third-party services.
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Jeff Schmidt commented
100% agree. If Proton decides to integrate deeply unethical "AI" technologies I will be forced, yet again, to migrate elsewhere. I'm hoping the responses to the last survey make this clear, but even ASKING about interest in the first place is troubling.
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commented
A majority of your users came to you to get away from their data being used to train machine algorithms. You will loose a majority of them by doing this. Would have assumed you already understood that based on your marketing material and how you criticize tech giants for those same sort of practices.
I’m not against the use of gen AI. It is indeed a useful tool, but like any other tool, it’s beholden to the ethics of how it is used. For gen AI the one holding the metaphorical hammer from an ethical perspective is the one developing the algorithm.
If proton were to create an AI tool that leveraged any user generated web content other than a place where people go to clearly volunteer their knowledge under a copyleft license such as maybe Wikipedia as an example. It would cross an ethical boundary already defined by the precedent of proton’s prior demonstrated values.
And that’s just one example ethics involved here…
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AdminProton (Community Team, Proton) commented
Proton is not in the business of following trends, and we don't compromise on privacy, as our history and track record show. However, delivering the best user experience sometimes requires using new and innovative technologies, but always in a responsible way.
To give two examples, Proton uses in-house AI to answer some customer support inquiries faster, but always with human review to ensure accuracy. Proton Sentinel also uses some AI to better detect account takeovers and other threats, but again, it is supplemented by a team of human security analysts. AI is likely not inherently good or bad but is highly dependent on how it is used. Proton uses all sorts of technologies to further our mission, but always with deep respect for our values and the values of our users.
We always consider community feedback in everything we do, which is why we send out community surveys to collect additional information.
(Edited by admin) -
Andrew Rose commented
Please, just don't!
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k commented
This is vital. Shame on Proton for even considering AI. Make it clear you won't go down that road, fast! People will leave over this.
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m commented
I would rather not have to move away from proton, it's been serving me rather well, but having AI anywhere near my primary email is completely unacceptable.
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brh commented
Was incredibly disappointing to see Proton even entertaining this nonsense in the latest user survey. You must have better things to work on then some needless management bait.
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Sara commented
I was really hoping Proton would be able to keep it's head cool and stay out of this most recent VC cash-grab. But apparently we can't just have nice things. Having to find another email provider would be a pain so please just don't.