LibreOffice says ‘no AI’ is now a software program function

If you’re searching for a doc editor that doesn’t use synthetic intelligence, LibreOffice could also be simply the software program for you.

The Document Foundation, the nonprofit software program maker behind the open supply doc editor LibreOffice, stated in a blog post this week that whereas it doesn’t reject AI out of hand, it “is not going to add” AI to its software program for the foreseeable future.

The weblog publish comes weeks after the discharge of the newest model of LibreOffice in late August, by which the nonprofit reiterated that the software program “accommodates no generative AI options.” 

LibreOffice stated at the time that this was a “deliberate design place” to make sure that customers’ paperwork are usually not uploaded to a server for processing and that no a part of the software program requires a community connection to operate. The nonprofit added that its software program is utilized by tens of thousands and thousands of individuals and organizations, and that customers ought to retain management over their knowledge.

“Any organisation dealing with confidential, legally privileged or private knowledge must know the place that knowledge goes, and the one assurance that survives an audit is that it doesn’t go away the machine,” the group stated. 

LibreOffice says customers can nonetheless select to make use of AI instruments by putting in software program extensions that join the doc editor to native AI fashions.

The choice to eschew together with AI options bucks the development of many software program makers in the present day that attempt to pack in as a lot AI as potential, even to the detriment of the consumer expertise. The so-called “enshittification” of recent software program by packing in pointless and bloated options, like chatbots and AI assistants, prompted some builders to create or embrace options that block or remove AI options altogether.

AI instruments typically require the customers’ knowledge to be uploaded and processed on a distant server, which the consumer has no management over how the information is saved or for the way lengthy. 

LibreOffice stated that there’s at the moment “no integration” that meets all of its necessities, corresponding to guaranteeing that the customers’ knowledge stays on their system and that there isn’t any reliance on a single AI supplier, amongst different concerns. The group’s standards for together with AI into its software program shouldn’t be a “definitive rejection,” however the choice was an evaluation of the know-how in the present day, somewhat than a “judgement on the worth of the sector.”

“Until then, there might be no AI of any sort within the default set up; extensions might be out there for many who want to combine AI options, and we’ll carefully monitor the place the know-how is definitely heading,” stated LibreOffice’s blog post.

LibreOffice is likely one of the many kinds of open source and alternative software used to flee the clutches of Silicon Valley tech giants.