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Comment on Firefox 148 introduces the promised AI kill switch for people who aren't into LLMs

And the fact that the confirmation feels “menacing” and defaulted to cancelling the opting-off (i.e. pressing “esc” or clicking outside the window; one must click the primary-colored “block” button which, contrasted to a grayish “Cancel” button, may psychologically induce the user into thinking “block” is a dangerous action), quite similar to the about:config warning screen.

I don’t think it’s menacing at all. It gives an informative list of features, which is nice to know. I could see a lot of people wanting to turn off all AI then realizing they actually want local translate instead of sending everything to google.

And you’ve got the button intents mixed up. Primary color is always the encouraged action in that kind of design. Dark pattern would be if the colors were flipped.

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dsilverz@calckey.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
@Feyd@programming.dev @technology@lemmy.world

When we develop a system (I used to work as a DevOps for almost 10 years), the technical aspects aren't the only aspects being accounted for: especially when it comes to the front-end (i.e. the UI the user sees, the UX how user interaction will happen and how it may be perceived by them), psychology (especially behaviorism) is sine qua non.

Shapes and colors often carry archetypal meanings: a red element feels "dangerous", a window with a yellow triangle icon feels to be "warning" about something, a green button feels "okayish". I mean, those are the exact same principles behind traffic lights.

And signs and symbols, ruling the world, don't exist in a vacuum: a colored button besides a monochromatic button may, psychologically, lead to a feeling that the colored button is the proper way to proceed.

But... there's a twist: imagine you have a light-gray "Cancel" and a colored (regardless of the color) "Block". "Block" is a strong word. The length of the label text also does impart psychological effects. The human brain may see: "huh, I have this button which reads 'block' and it's quite strong, and this other button which reads 'cancel' and it's more easy to the eyes, maybe 'block' is dangerous". Contrast matters: the comparison between a substrate and the substances is pretty much how we're wired to navigate this world as living beings.

Now, corporations such as Apple (Safari), Google (Chromium), and very likely Mozilla (Firefox) as well, they have entire hordes of psychologists directly working for them, likely the same psychologists who'll work together with their HR departments for evaluating the candidates who applied for a job position there. These psychologists, and/or psychoanalysts, they know about Jungian archetypes, they know about fight-or-flight response and other facets of our deeply-ingrained instincts, they know about how colors are generally perceived by the human brain. Those psychologists likely played a role when a brand was chosen, or when an advertisement pitch was made. They know what they're doing.

UX/UI decisions are far from random choices from the leading team of project management engineers, it involved designers with psychologists. Again: they know what they're doing, they know it pretty well. They know how the users are likely to keep the functionality. They know how the users, as Ulrich said, are very unlikely to touch the settings, likely to keep the defaults, no matter what those defaults are. Because they know humans are driven by the "least-effort" instinct, which is quite of a fundamental principle shared among living beings as a byproduct of the "lowest energetic point" (thermodynamic equilibrium) principle.

To me, a former full-stack developer, the newer Firefox interfaces don't feel like Firefox is being psychologically fair and honest with the user's mind. Dark patterns are often subtle, and they're part of a purposeful, corporate decision.
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- Orygin@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  What a load of horse shit. You don’t have any clue what you’re talking about and it shows.
  
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  - dsilverz@calckey.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    @Orygin@sh.itjust.works @technology@lemmy.world
    
    While some of the intricacies I brought into this discussion may stem from my specific, neurodivergent/AuDHD perception of the world, the overall thing involving dark pattern and the psychological influence of design is not something I'm inventing: it's literally an intersection between design and psychology, extensively researched by academia:
    
    - "The Psychology of Design: Understanding User Behavior to Enhance User Experience", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.9, Issue 12, page no.g529-g534, December-2022, http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2212681.pdf
    - "The application of color theory in UI/UX design", Milot Gusia, UBT international conference, 2024, https://knowledgecenter.ubt-uni.net/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4924&context=conference
    - "Dark patterns and consumer vulnerability", Amit Zac et al, Cambridge University Press, 2025, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioural-public-policy/article/dark-patterns-and-consumer-vulnerability/83EF6347CCB19EDA195C54229D34D3A8
    
    But, you know what? Yeah, it's all horse shit, corporations don't exploit the vulnerabilities involuntarily ingrained within our brains since our births for profit, Mozilla (alongside Google who gives them money to keep Google Gemini clanker formerly Google Search as the default search engine) is a such an innocent (practically angelical) very-friendly corporation with a cute fox mascot, and I am just a pretending-to-be DevOps who clearly have no clue what I'm talking about...
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XLE@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The most menacing thing in that picture is the bold red text, assuming it isn’t Photoshopped that way. I’ve seen Firefox implement other dark patterns, including hiding the ability to disable ads from within the homepage… But this isn’t really one of them.

It’s also true that Mozilla only supports selected AI (and search) companies, presumably the ones that give them money. Users have been begging Mozilla for StartPage integration, but Mozilla gave them a Perplexity integration instead. Firefox initially supported local LLMs in their AI sidebar, but they hid that option early on. It definitely paints all their talk about “choice” in a bad light.

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- dsilverz@calckey.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  @XLE@piefed.social @Feyd@programming.dev @technology@lemmy.world
  The most menacing thing in that picture is the bold red text, assuming it isn’t Photoshopped that way
  I'm interacting from Sharkey, on a Lemmy thread, and you're interacting from PieFed. I'm not sure if PieFed fetches the alt-text from images. If you access my original Sharkey note, you'll see the following alt-text:
  Screenshot of confirmation dialog "Block AI enhancements?" with "or pop-ups about them" highlighted.
  I disclosed the fact that "or pop-ups about them" was highlighted. Also, a quick reverse image search would point to the original picture where said excerpt isn't highlighted.
  
  It would be photoshopping/photo manipulation if I removed, added or changed text from the picture, which I didn't.
  I’ve seen Firefox implement other dark patterns, including hiding the ability to disable ads from within the homepage
  Exactly, and even this one is a matter of conundrum when it's brought to the table. Because Mozilla, and corporations in general, know the exact, dosimetric approach of pushing dark patterns, not too hard so all the user base would readily notice and complain, not too soft so all the shareholders wouldn't see the "graph line go up". Just the right amount to make things dance to their song.
  
  Even today, stating how the opting-out of "Sponsored shortcuts" isn't trivial for the average user (not to mention how said user will see the sponsored shortcuts at least once as they head to turn them off), is met with people blindly advocating for Mozilla (which, let us remember, they're a corporation with corporate interests, not a lifelong friend or a fellow trustworthy acquaintance, and corporations are driven by profit, not by friendship or psychological well-being).
  But this isn’t really one of them
  The opt-out implies a feature that was pushed without consent.
  
  Again, I bring my heavy hypothetical example: if a harasser offers the harassed a way out of the harassment after having initiated the harassment, would this make the harasser less of a harasser? Hell no, of course no! It's still harassment! It turns out opt-out features are exactly that: something that gives you the "right" to leave, only after it was pushed onto you.
  
  And The fact that "opting-out" requires double confirmation only makes it worse, as if the hypothetical harassed were to be ask by the hypothetical harasser "are you sure you don't want this?" before being "allowed" to be freed from the hypothetical harassment.
  Users have been begging Mozilla for StartPage integration, but Mozilla gave them a Perplexity integration instead.
  Exactly, another dark pattern, and another proof of how Mozilla is not a friend, but a corporation.
  the ones that give them money
  Yeah. And this is often the justification people often use to advocate for that: "oh, but Mozilla needs to mane money" (at what cost?), as if donation-based economy weren't a thing.
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