this post was submitted on 17 May 2024
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Earlier today I received an email from Proton with an annual survey. Among standard questions there was a significant amount of AI related questions, e.g. mail assistant. Does it mean Proton is looking into AI?

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Since it isn't VC backed or publicly traded, I expect Proton to avoid the AI tech fever.

I guess I need to make my voice heard in that regard and answer the survey.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There was a question about AI and privacy. Don't remember exactly what it was but it was something like "What do you care the most about integrating AI into products" and most of the answers were about the privacy.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There are foss ai models that can work offline, so it's not completely out of the question to develop something that respects privacy. But IMO not entirely sure of that's the best use of resources, unless this doesn't slow down development of other improvements

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Ollama seems pretty good. I've been playing with it recently and when combined with openwebui, it makes pretty nice local chatgpt. But I agree, there are more pressing issues I would like to see fixed/implemented.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

Thanks for the reminder. Personally, I avoid anything with AI as much as possible, so I made it a point to fill out the survey.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I’m interested in a secure/private ai that doesn’t sell your data

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

ollama + openwebui. Selfhosted (hasn't check if it tries to contact mothership yet) and pretty good with the answers, especially when ran on GPU.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

oh my fucking god, please no

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Please don't Proton :(

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Not knowing what the questions were, I would guess they want to know if users are actually interested in it. Presumably if everyone says they want one they'll invest, but if everyone says they don't then they won't.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

@smeg @fart_pickle Hi everyone, and thank for the feedback! We send out an annual survey to align with the community.

Proton currently uses AI in Proton Sentinel, to help protect your account from takeovers, even when an attacker has your password. This is optional for subscribers and needs to be manually enabled.

Any future applications will depend on community interest and demand.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I would be happy to see privacy respecting AI assistant in Proton products, especially Proton Mail. English is not my native language and every now and then I need to use 3rd party services to compose a professional sounding email. Having this built into Proton Mail would have made my life easier. Also, having a feature that detects and labels faces and features in the pictures stored in a Proton Drive would be an amazing addition.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

@fart_pickle @protonprivacy
If Proton develops a "feature that detects and labels faces and features in the pictures stored in a Proton Drive," I will IMMEDIATELY extract every photo and file of mine from Proton Drive, and then CLOSE my Proton account.

Having that feature would probably require users to provide their password to the system performing the 'facial recognition' scan. That would be a HUGE vulnerability.

If I ever want my privacy destroyed, I'll use Apple, Google, Facebook, etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

This echoes my thoughts. I really suck at writing emails in my native tongue, and having something I can prompt to write an email for me would be useful. I don't want it to be trained on my emails to replicate my style or whatever, I'd just want an LLM on the side that I can prompt to write for me. I've done that with other LLMs in the past without having to integrate it anywhere.

I don't particularly care for facial recognition. I don't take photos of people.