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As Big Tech races to weave AI into nearly every product, Mozilla is betting some users want the opposite: the ability to turn it off. Last week, the company announced new controls to allow users of its Firefox browser to decide when to use AI. When Firefox 148 debuts later this month, users will be able to manage or disable individual AI features like translations, tab grouping and a sidebar for chatbot like Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and Le Chat Mistral. Much of Mozillas vision around AI was outlined in its annual State of Mozilla report, which was released last month and calls for a new Star Wars-style rebel alliance composed of developers, cybersecurity experts, investors, and others focused on responsible tech. The plan involves doing for AI what Mozilla once did in the earlier days of the web. The goal is to bend history in a different direction with the resources and the community we have, says Mozilla Foundation president Mark Surman. In a recent interview with Fast Company about the strategy, Surman likened the winner-takes-all mindset of some AI giants and startups to the galactic empire’s ambition to have an expanding footprint. “The Empire, like any empire, is more diffuse and more spread out than you think it is, Surman says. Transforming things is a constant battle of trying to do stuff that’s for humanity, against the things that are threatening us and holding us back. Funding the rebellion With more than 200 million users, Firefox is now Mozillas most popular product. However, Mozillas portfolio also includes other aspects like an email platform, a VPN, an AI data exchange, a venture arm and other initiatives for open-source AI. Mozilla also recently announced a new program inviting technologists to apply for a few months of paid work exploring early-stage ideas that could be worth Mozilla investing in. Part of Mozillas plan includes spending around $650 million this year, with 80% going to improve and maintain core products like Firefox and the rest directed toward what Surman calls systematic and aggressive investments in trustworthy AI and related areas. Mozilla also has $1.4 billion in reserves that it could use as dry powder for worthy bets on things like open-source AI developer tools and encrypted AI assistants. But thats not much compared with the hundreds of billions Mozillas rivals invest in AI-related capital expenditures each year. While Mozilla has leaned on Star Wars rebel alliance metaphor before, its vision has roots in an era that now feels a long time ago (and far, far away). In 1998, when Netscape created Mozilla.org, Microsoft was on trial for antitrust, as early open-source projects began challenging proprietary control of the web. Surman recalls it feeling impossible at the time to unseat a company that dominated browsers, servers, and operating systems. (A few years after AOL bought Netscape, Mozilla was spun off in 2003 as an independent nonprofit, followed in 2005 with the creation of Mozilla Corporation as a for-profit subsidiary.) [It took] a set of people who all wanted a different future they could configure and tweak and make their own, Surman says. It’s not like they all had to build one big thing. We built a browser. A bunch of people built Linux, a bunch of people built web servers, and people built thousands of other things. Decades later, its now Google thats on trial for antitrust while Mozilla competes against other privacy focused browsers like DuckDuckGo and Brave alongside AI startups like OpenAI and Perplexity that now have their own browsers. The antitrust scrutiny and growing distrust of AI and Big Tech have some finding a new hope for raising old questions about choice and competition. Mozilla also operates Gecko, one of only three major browser engines alongside Googles Chromium and Apples WebKit. That gives Mozilla a key role in shaping how open web standards are developed and implemented through groups such as the World Wide Web Consortium. It hasnt all been smooth sailing. Mozilla’s also had setbacks over the past year or two. In late 2024, it announced plans to lay off around 30% of its staff and last year it shuttered products like Pocket as part of a plan to refocus on offerings. Finding moonshots on Earth Mozillas new report is more like a manifesto designed by an underground collective inspired by punk and resistance movements of the 1970s and 1980s. The microsites design seems to intentionally reject the minimalist uniformity common with Big Tech brands and rebrands. Mozillas efforts also include a new Choose Your Future campaign for internet users, developers and advocates interested in charting a new path. The campaign is anchored by a series of five short videos thatll be featured on social media and through ads on platforms like Reddit, Meta, and X. The ads all have different messages, but the same ending sound: a modem dial-up as a nod to the internet from a few decades back. Each features a dystopian parable for an AI era without options but with plenty of AI slop and intrusive chatbots. One video starts with a girl staring at a toy called Funblock, which a radio ad markets as the only block you’ll ever need. No choices, no options, no confusion. Just endless identical fun, the narration says. Funblock may result in boredom, diminished agency, and loss of independent thought. Ask your algorithm if fun is right for you.” Mozillas new AI strategy exists in an uneasy tension of how to build trustworthy tech in an industry obsessed with growth. Can it offer a viable alternative to Big Techs tightly integrated ecosystems while still being the internets moral compass? Surman thinks so, adding that Mozillas having the same AI debates internally as the world is having outside it: what to do with AI, what not to do, when its useful, when its scary, and how to make tech that’s better for everyone. But instead of putting data centers on the moon, Mozilla hopes to forge a future thats privacy-enhanced, open-source, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly. “[People say] ‘You’re crazy, that can’t happen, Surman says. But you think we’re crazier to do a collective barn-raising for something that is joyous and great, and you’re going to put data centers on the moon, and we’re the ones who aren’t grounded in reality?”
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In 2022, Jennette McCurdy released her memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died, a brutally honest portrait of her life as a former child star, her battle with eating disorders, and, as the title would suggest, her rather complicated relationship with her mother. The book has spent more than 80 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list with over three million copies sold. It’s currently being adapted into an Apple TV+ series with Jennifer Aniston playing McCurdy’s mom, and McCurdy serving as co-writer, co-executive producer, and co-showrunner. Adjacent to the massive success of I’m Glad My Mom Died has been McCurdy reclaiming writing, not acting, as her true passion. In her memoir, McCurdy stated her acting career was solely to appease her mother and support her family, an experience she’d later describe as “hellish” and “embarrassing.” But writing is McCurdy’s truth “North Star” for her creativity. “Writing has always been in my bones, McCurdy says in the latest episode of Fast Company‘s podcast Creative Control. It’s always been my mode of processing and making sense of the world. And there’s much to process with McCurdy’s debut work of fiction, Half His Age. Half His Age follows Waldo, a 17 year old high school student who enters into an affair with her married English teacher, Mr. Korgy. It’s an unflinching and often visceral exploration of power dynamics, desire, and, most of all, to McCurdy, “female rage.” “That’s what I really tried to explore as thoroughly as I could and as potently as I could,” McCurdy says. “To me, there’s no vessel that’s more potent than a 17-year-old. Feelings are never going to be higher, never gonna be hotter, never gonna be more intense.” In this episode of Creative Control, McCurdy unpacks her writing process (it’s a full-body endeavor, mind you), the discomfort shes intentionally leaning into with Half His Age, and what it means to take full authorshipand creative controlof her career. NOTE: Some spoilers ahead! On her Creative Process The initial idea for Half His Age came to McCurdy nearly a decade ago. She knew she wanted to explore a relationship between a young girl and her teacher, but that was about it. It wasn’t until around two years ago, as she was trying to write something else, that Half His Age kept bubbling up. [Cover Image: Random House] “It was keeping me up at night, frankly. I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” McCurdy says. I said, Im going to give Half His Age a week; I’ll grow tired of it by day three or four; and it will never come to fruition.” Cut to McCurdy going all-in to write her first draft in a month. Im such a full bodied writer. I write with emotions. For my first drafts, my inner critic is nowhere to be found, McCurdy says. That’s generally how I know. If I’m feeling really emotionally activated by an idea, that’s my sign its go timeIm so sorry for saying, its go time. On Making You Uncomfortable The premise alone of Half His Age could be enough to negate a whole swath of potential readers. The concept of a high schooler entering into a sexual relationship with her teacher is most certainly squirm-worthy. Adding to that is the highly visceral nature of how McCurdy explores this affair and the collateral emotional damage it inevitably brings. One scene in particular involves Waldo and Mr. Korgy having sex while she’s on her period. Midway through, they’re interrupted and Waldo is forced to hide in a closet while she continues to have her period holding her blood in her hands. I think it’s a very memorable [scene]. I did want it to feel very visceral and just deeply uncomfortable, McCurdy says. It was important that Waldo experienced something so raw and so ugly because she needed some kind of wake-up call, some kind of rock bottom that could help her piece things together.Broadly speaking, the discomfort in Half His Age is driven by something more universal than cupping your own period blood in a closet. Much of the novel feels like a mediation on gaining autonomy over your own body. At that young age, you don’t know what [your body] wants, McCurdy says. Its just this complicated process of fully integrating your mind and your body.” As a woman, so much of our intuition, so much of my intuition, comes from my body and me sitting with it, she adds. And [thats] for better or worse. Sometimes I’m having feelings that I wish I wasn’t having. But always it’s useful information. And that’s definitely a part of Waldos experience throughout the course of the book and her journey. On Having AuthorityNot ‘Control’ For so much of McCurdys early years, control wasnt part of her vocabulary. In addition to being pushed into an acting career she didnt want, McCurdy recounted stories in her memoir like her mom showering her until she was 18 years old. Fast-forward to today, McCurdy is defining her life and work on her termsalthough she admits to avoiding the word control. I think I have maybe a slightly negative connotation around control. Not completely, but there’s something in it that feels a bit like grippy,” McCurdy says. “I kind of prefer the word authority. So how does she define authority at this stage in her life? When I feel authority, it’s when I allow myself to lead with my body. It’s when I listen to my body, when I take the information that’s it’s giving me, and I sit with it, McCurdy says. For so much of my life, I neglected the cues and the emotions and all that my body was telling me. And now I think, you know what? My body has wisdomthat I don’t got. Listen to this full episode of Creative Control and many more on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
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Trevor McOmber and his 14-year-old son, Tye, share a love for the Chicago Blackhawks. When Trevor was his son’s age, he watched the Blackhawks on TV, caught highlights on ESPN and read about the team in the newspaper.It’s a much different experience for Tye.“I go to YouTube with Snapchat, or Google something if I just have an idea that I want to know,” Tye McOmber said while sitting next to his father at a recent Blackhawks game.Tye McOmber is on the border of Generation Z, born roughly between 1997 to 2012, and Generation Alpha, approximately 2012 to 2024 a sprawling group of people with unique media habits and diverse attitudes on where sports fit into their lives.Together, they form potentially, at least the next generation of sports fans, an almost constant topic of conversation in the offices of every major sports organization. And they have proven to be a tricky target.According to a Morning Consult poll, 20% of Gen-Z adults identify as avid sports fans, compared to 33% of Millennials and 27% of Generation X. One-third of the Gen-Z respondents said they do not follow sports at all. Even among those who are fans, the touchpoints for teams and leagues are changing constantly.“Something that we might have done two or three years ago to capture this audience is changing based on how they consume, the way they consume, the way that content is packaged to them as well,” said Uzma Rawn Dowler, the chief marketing officer for Major League Baseball. “And so we’re always constantly keeping up with the trends and of how we can continue to resonate with this audience in the right way.” Gen Z, Gen Alpha and sports Mark Beal, a communication professor at Rutgers University, shows an image of a Zamboni during his presentations on Gen Z and Gen Alpha. He asks his audience what the Zamboni is, and after a while, he provides his perspective.“That is a Gen-Z dream right there,” he says. “You put a Gen Z-er in that between period one and two of a game. By the time they get done they’ve live-streamed it, they’ve shot it, they’ve put it out on TikTok.”In their own distinct voice, too, one that often appeals to a large audience. In the Jan. 28 poll, social media (53%) and streaming services (38%) were the top choices for the Gen-Z respondents when it comes to where they go the most for sports content.Media consumption for Gen Z and Gen Alpha “is unprecedented,” said Beal. The challenge is finding those eyes, and staying in front of them. Especially when it comes to casual sports fans who are perhaps more interested in the latest celebrity post than highlights from games.That means embracing unorthodox connections. Like kids celebrating basketball teams reaching 67 points as part of the “6-7” craze. Or the NFL’s Buffalo Bills posting a video of its rookies identifying characters from Italian brainrot a popular group of internet memes.Gen Z and Gen Alpha gravitate toward personalities, so major sports organizations work with a group of creators to help spread their content.The NBA is hosting more than 200 creators with a collective footprint of more than 1 billion followers for its All-Star festivities this weekend in Los Angeles. They are slated to participate in live broadcasts, in-arena programming and fan experiences.Bob Carney, a senior vice president for digital and social content at the NBA, said the league uses an artificial intelligence-powered social media measurement platform to identify creators for its network.“That’s only the first step,” Carney said. “Once the technology flags someone, our team still evaluates their creativity, authenticity, tone and how naturally they fit into basketball culture. So, it’s an AI-assisted process. The goal is to make sure we never overlook the next creator who is resonating with fans.”The players, who often have their own social media followings, serve as their own network for their sports. The prospective audience matters, Dowler said.“For our growth audiences, we partner with influencers in relevant adjacent spaces,” she said, “whether it’s food, fashion, other culturally relevant sort of spaces to reach that casual perspective fan to bring them into the baseball ecosystem through the side door and feed them that adjacent baseball content through the lens of players or influencers to then ultimately have them convert to be that core fan.” Where it’s going Reaching and developing the next generation of sports fans is a collective endeavor.Partnerships play a role. The International Olympic Committee announced a collaboration with Roblox in 2024 that created Olympic World on the popular online gaming platform. Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James and Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Shohei Ohtani are part of Fortnite, an online game. Major League Baseball also has a partnership with ABCmouse for baseball-themed learning activities for kids.Youth participation also is a vehicle for making new sports fans, and it’s a major reason why MLB has invested heavily in youth baseball and softball programs.“We’re trying to fish where the fish are, quite honestly,” Dowler said.The NBA has been experimenting with using generative AI to create more specialized content think animation for a younger age group, something that wasn’t practical before because of the cost but it’s pursuing a particular look and feel on social media.“On our league-run social channels, we are very deliberate about keeping the content grounded in the same native tools and formats that fans and creators themselves use,” Carney said. “That helps the ecosystem feel organic, authentic, and not overly produced. Where generative AI really comes into play for us is behind the scenes and in purpose-built experiences. We use it to solve problems at scale.”The NHL’s strategy for reaching younger fans leans at least in part on its NHL Power Players, a youth initiative that is in its seventh season.The league uses an application process to create an advisory board of approximately 25 members ranging in age from 13 to 17. There are two virtual meetings every month, in addition to other conversations between the league and the teenagers.“We’ve had people from everywhere from Nova Scotia to Hawaii and everywhere in between,” said Heidi Browning, the chief marketing officer for the NHL. “They’re not necessarily all in hockey towns, which is really incredible for us. And they advise us on everything from marketing to content to technology to social to creators to fan engagement.”The NHL periodically revisits the insights it gleans from the youth board to see how attitudes and behaviors are shifting over time. Browning said she goes to all the meetings, underlying the importance of the program to the league.“(We) are constantly thinking about how can we intentionally listento the next generation of fans because they’re not just younger versions of our previous fans,” Browning said. “They’re actually consuming and connecting and engaging differently than the generations that are older than they are.” AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports Jay Cohen, AP Sports Writer
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