Whenever AI is mentioned lots of people in the Linux space immediately react negatively. Creators like TheLinuxExperiment on YouTube always feel the need to add a disclaimer that “some people think AI is problematic” or something along those lines if an AI topic is discussed. I get that AI has many problems but at the same time the potential it has is immense, especially as an assistant on personal computers (just look at what “Apple Intelligence” seems to be capable of.) Gnome and other desktops need to start working on integrating FOSS AI models so that we don’t become obsolete. Using an AI-less desktop may be akin to hand copying books after the printing press revolution. If you think of specific problems it is better to point them out and try think of solutions, not reject the technology as a whole.
TLDR: A lot of ludite sentiments around AI in Linux community.
I’ve yet to see a need for “AI integration ✨” in to the desktop experience. Copilot, LLM chat bots, TTS, OCR, and translation using machine learning are all interesting but I don’t think OS integration is beneficial.
Time 💫 will ✨ prove 💫 you ✨ wrong. 💫
not every high tech product or idea makes it, you don’t see a lot of netbooks or wifi connected kitchen appliances these days either; having the ability to make tiny devices or connecting every single device is not justification enough to actually do it. i view ai integration similarly: having an llm in some side bar to change the screen brightness, find some time or switch the keyboard layout isn’t really useful. being able to select text in an image viewer or searching through audio and video for spoken words for example would be a useful application for machine learning in the DE, that isn’t really what’s advertised as “AI” though.
i don’t really think anyone would be against the last two examples to be integrated in dolphin, nautilus, gwenview… either.
Changing the brightness or WiFi settings can be very useful for many people. Not everyone is a Linux nerd and knows all the ins and outs of basic computing.
maybe, but these people wouldn’t own a pc with a dedicated gpu or neutral network accelerator.