Hello Ladies and Gentlemen!
I saw this Video from the Linux Experiment Youtube Channel:
The first Topic is really interesting. Fedora works on an Implementation of AI. It comes from IBM. That itself would be worth a lot of Discussion - I mean the Integration of AI in a Linux Distro.
But there was one Thing said - almost as a Side Note. Gnome could implement AI Features, too. As far as I understand that, it isn't really a fix Plan. But it seems to be on the Table. And that would affect us here on Zorin too because the Zorin Desktop is based on Gnome.
Sure, this is not a Topic for now - maybe in a couple Years, if it really should come. But I'm interested to hear what You People think about this. If Zorin wouldn't kick out the AI Stuff, would You switch the Distro? Or would You only switch the Desktop and stay on Zorin? Or could this be a Reason for the Zorin Team to switch their Desktop Base? Okay, the last Question would be more for the Developers. But what do the Users think about that?
Since getting the desktop environment I actually want requires leaving Zorin anyway, if GNOME embedded AI, I'd probably switch distributions entirely. I have Stable Diffusion via AUTOMATIC1111 and LMStudio on my machine to play with. I don't object entirely to AI software provided it's running locally. I do object to anything embedded in my OS though, much the same as I object to Microsoft's long march toward embedding its services in Windows.
If Fedora wants to include a local chatbot I can dnf remove, I care a lot less, though I'd VERY strongly prefer it be treated the way proprietary software is and be something I have to opt into at install.
Any AI not running locally is a deal breaker for me under all circumstances.
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It depends on what that integration actually looks like.
My primary OS is and will likely always be macOS for any kind of work and productivity tasks. Apple talks a lot about Apple Intelligence, but it's really hidden in every area of the OS.
I don't use it*, and it doesn't bother me. You have the option to send your queries to chatGPT if you want, but otherwise, it just remains hidden. Even if you were to do anything, it'd be on-device. And if you turn it off (or don't turn it on, to begin with), it's nowhere to be seen.
If Linux distros implement AI like that, I don't see any issues. In fact, that asterisk is because I use AI tools from time to time, including in Zorin. I run Alpaca, which lets me run local models like Meta's Llama, Mistral, and anything else I fancy. Everything is on-device, so I don't mind getting AI to do some work for me.
Microsoft really has the worst AI implementation so far. It pushes things onto consumers, which is a big reason why people hate all things AI/copilot.
I'm not bothered by Apple Intelligence, and I do use local LLM via Alpaca on Zorin, which really means I won't be bothered if a Linux distro includes AI in some sort, as long as it doesn't follow in the footsteps of the dreaded Copilot BS.
