this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2025
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[–] arotrios@lemmy.world 88 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Ok, this part is pretty cool:

Thunderbird Assist will also be available. This experimental feature, developed in collaboration with Flower AI, offers optional artificial intelligence functionalities for users who want them while also addressing privacy concerns head-on. On devices robust enough to handle AI models locally, Thunderbird Assist processes everything on the user’s own machine.

However, for users on less powerful hardware, the development team has integrated NVIDIA’s confidential computing to keep any remote processing secure. Rest assured, those who prefer to skip AI services can continue using Thunderbird without these extras.

I've been unwilling to touch cloud based AI, much less expose my emails to it as there's no guarantee of privacy, but being able to run a local model allows you the functionality without the risk. Haven't used Thunderbird in years, but this is tempting me to give it another shot.

[–] Montagge@lemmy.zip 33 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Why on earth would I want AI integrated in my email?

[–] BussyCat@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

“AI” or as they were called for the longest time machine learning algorithms can do things like spell check and help with grammar.

The more modern algorithms that they started really calling AI can help format your ideas, can fix sentence structure, and can even translate into foreign languages

Email is probably the most useful place for AI as most of the ones we talk about today are really good at language formatting but don’t really have any intelligence

For example you can write an email cursing out your boss saying “as I fucking told you yesterday” and then ask the AI to rewrite your email in a professional tone so that it says “per my previous email” like sure you can obviously do that yourself but it’s a lot faster to word vomit your thoughts into a computer especially when it’s trivial work related garbage and save your mental energy for your personal time

[–] Montagge@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Trying real hard not to be old man yelling at clouds, but have things gotten so bad people can no longer write a simple email without help with sentence structure?

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I'm a software developer, not a writer or a salesperson, but I have to do sales to sell my software.

I can write a first draft of a sales email to get my ideas across and then have the AI look at it from a specific perspective I don't have the skills in.

I dont just take whatever it says and hit send though, I have a conversation with it to tweak things i don't like, remove things that I don't think are needed or add things it missed.

Do this for 15 to 20 minutes and I end up with a much more polished email that won't come across as AI slop with all the personal touches I did want to add.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Just a question on the value of time: If you can't be bothered to write it, why should anyone bother to read it? Is it really that valuable of a message?

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (5 children)

I do write something, and then work to refine it. Like I said, I spent 15 to 20 minutes on it after writing it.

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[–] Pirata@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago (4 children)

We probably never sent as many emails as we do today, and there are bigger priorities. Wanna blame someone, blame the overly pompous corporate world.

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[–] unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago

Eh. You might not, but the "normies" might. Expanding the userbase is always a good idea for open source projects.

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[–] BroBot9000@lemmy.world 28 points 1 week ago (4 children)

They don’t list which stolen data Flower Ai was trained on. Ai slop is Ai slop and will only lead to less critical thinking from the general population: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lee_2025_ai_critical_thinking_survey.pdf

[–] arotrios@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Your points are valid, but I look at AI as an unavoidable trend in the tech space, which is why I experiment with local models. I'd rather understand how they work (and how to protect oneself from them) as I believe avoiding them isn't really possible in my field.

Thus far, the local models I've worked with have gotten a C- on coding, but an A+ on bullshit. I think the tech still has a long way to go before it lives up to the hype, both negative and positive.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Thus far, the local models I've worked with have gotten a C- on coding, but an A+ on bullshit.

I work at a company that won't allow us to use a search engine but has a local model we're allowed to use, and this is a pretty apt summary.

[–] zqwzzle 30 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 4 points 1 week ago

s/chatgpt/journalists/ too.

[–] CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

How do you get anything done at all??

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[–] timewarp@lemmy.world 38 points 1 week ago (10 children)

Finally, Mozilla is finally doing something innovative for once. Stalwart is freaking awesome.

[–] Shareni@programming.dev 7 points 1 week ago

Inb4 Mozilla dies because the lead of the AI development division is the ex-ceo who followed up massive layoffs with doubling her multi-milion salary every few years.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 5 points 1 week ago

Next I hope Thunderbird'll restore the GTK/Qt theming support they removed two years ago...

[–] asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Thunderbird is going hard on Rust all of a sudden. Recently they started using it in Thunderbird and now they're starting a whole service in Stalwart (written in Rust).

Super awesome.

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[–] danielquinn 21 points 1 week ago

This is great news, and I might be tempted to use it if I had some reassurance that the mail servers (and the organisation that controls them) weren't subject to U.S. jurisdiction.

[–] ProfHillbilly@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I asked this before but it might have been buried. Can I run this in a web browser because when I go to the site it wants me to download.

[–] KarnaSubarna@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 days ago
[–] Nexy@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I already have tuta and libreoffice

[–] null@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago (3 children)

How the uptime with Tuta these days? Was hearing some negative reviews about extended outages a while back.

I want to leave Proton, but I fear for the day I need a 2FA code and I can't get it.

[–] envoy@lemm.ee 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What’s wrong with proton?

[–] chebra@mstdn.io 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] envoy@lemm.ee 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] chebra@mstdn.io 4 points 1 week ago

@envoy No additional "analysis" by some random guy on internet can change what the CEO wrote and did. I saw him admire trump. I saw him use company support account for his personal fight. This really needs something a bit stronger than an "analysis" to regain some trust.

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[–] AlienContact2049 4 points 1 week ago (9 children)

I am trying to outrun evil techbros but it's impossible...

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[–] kixik@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Well, I wouldn't like AI in any communication client of mine. Perhaps if it's local to my box I would like that, but this solution really seems cloud based, meaning one could have an AI crawling over one's data, to do whatever it wants with it. And local solutions usually are not as "good" as the cloud ones for whatever reason (hardware availability, data, and so on):

for users on less powerful hardware, the development team has integrated NVIDIA’s confidential computing to keep any remote processing secure. Rest assured, those who prefer to skip AI services can continue using Thunderbird without these extras.

There's still tuta, or even /e/ (now a days murena), which still seem safer privacy wise than this new thunderbird option.

I'm really hoping for a "librewolf" kind of fork oriented to privacy, and betterbird doesn't offer anything like that. The phoenix project has a safer user config for both firefox and thunderbird, but that doesn't get rid of components (well perhaps it could possibly turn them off, though to make sure they better get ripped at build time).

Does any one know if this new TB service would offer caldav and carddav services as well? I didn't see anything on stalwart advertisement.

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