Why Vivaldi won't follow the current AI trend?

Scope of AI in Browsers

• Some see many potential browser-integrated LLM features: summarizing pages, semantic search, tab sorting, parental controls, translation, language assistance, accessibility (image descriptions), dev help (explaining console errors).
• Others argue these are marginal or gimmicky (e.g., “search is solved,” no market for tab sorting) and better handled by standalone AI tools or extensions.
• Several favor OS‑level or local LLMs the browser can hook into, rather than each browser shipping or hosting its own model.

Privacy, Security, and Surveillance

• Strong backlash toward Windows Recall–style “multimodal assistants” that continuously record activity.
• Critics describe it as an all-encompassing keylogger: SQLite logs of everything a user does, easily exploitable by malware or any app with user privileges, including highly sensitive professional data.
• Some label the backlash “fear‑mongering,” comparing it to reactions to earlier tech (e.g., wearable cameras), but others insist these are objectively serious privacy threats, especially to bystanders.

Misinformation, Summaries, and “Preprocessed Reality”

• Debate over LLM hallucinations: supporters say errors are manageable and offset by large productivity gains; detractors emphasize confident wrong answers and loss of nuance.
• Strong resistance to AI summarizing “walls of text”: fear of turning long-form writing into shallow, Instagram‑style snippets and weakening critical reading habits.
• Others counter that much online writing is already filler; AI summaries help triage low-quality or overly long content and choose what to read fully.
• Broader concern about “preprocessed reality” parallels past criticism of algorithmic feeds; some argue it’s different because the user initiates queries, at least “for now.”

Strategic and Philosophical Stance of Vivaldi

• Many agree a browser need not chase every AI trend and should avoid costly, privacy‑sensitive features that don’t align with its vision.
• Critics say the article’s arguments are shallow or biased (e.g., rhetoric about “vast” energy use, plagiarism, underpaid data labelers) and that Vivaldi could simply say “not worth it yet.”
• Some think refusing AI on principle is strategically risky: users wanting integrated summaries or helpers may switch to competitors; others argue Vivaldi’s audience is already philosophically aligned.

Ethics, Energy, and Training Data

• Concerns raised about high energy and GPU usage, with comparisons to cryptocurrencies; some question whether this criticism is meaningful without relating cost to value.
• Ethical worries around low‑paid RLHF workers and training on unlicensed copyrighted content; others respond that humans also learn from copyrighted material, but opponents insist software must be held to different legal standards.