How large is a large language model? We now coexist with machines so vast and so complicated that nobody quite understands what they are, how they work, or what they can really do—not even the people who build them.

That’s a problem. Even though nobody fully understands how it works—and thus exactly what its limitations might be—hundreds of millions of people now use this technology every day. 

To help overcome our ignorance, researchers are studying LLMs as if they were doing biology or neuroscience on vast living creatures—city-size xenomorphs that have appeared in our midst. And they’re discovering that large language models are even weirder than they thought. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

The Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero has been preparing for a surgery that might never happen. His idea? Swap a sick person’s head—or perhaps just the brain—onto a younger, healthier body.

Canavero caused a stir in 2017 when he announced that a team he advised in China had exchanged heads between two corpses. But he never convinced skeptics that his technique could succeed—or to believe his claim that a procedure on a live person was imminent.

1 Big Tech is facing multiple high-profile social media addiction lawsuits 
Meta, TikTok and YouTube will face parents’ accusations in court this week. (WP $)
+ It’s the first time they’re defending against these claims before a jury in a court of law. (CNN)

2 Power prices are surging in the world’s largest data center hub
Virginia is struggling to meet record demand during a winter storm, partly because of the centers’ electricity demands. (Reuters)
+ Why these kinds of violent storms are getting harder to forecast. (Vox)
+ AI is changing the grid. Could it help more than it harms? (MIT Technology Review)

3 TikTok has started collecting even more data on its users
Including precise information about their location. (Wired $)

An anonymous account holder sued to block ICE from identifying them—and won. (Ars Technica)

The AI ouroboros is never-ending. (NYT $)
+ Is AI really capable of making bona fide scientific advancements? (Undark)
+ AI trained on AI garbage spits out AI garbage. (MIT Technology Review)

8 AI is changing how manufacturers create new products
Including thinner chewing gum containers and new body wash odors. (WSJ $)
+ AI could make better beer. Here’s how. (MIT Technology Review)

But will other US states follow its lead? (The Verge)

10 Sci-fi writers are cracking down on AI
Human-produced works only, please. (TechCrunch)
+ San Diego Comic-Con was previously a safe space for AI-generated art. (404 Media)
+ Generative AI is reshaping South Korea’s webcomics industry. (MIT Technology Review)

The return of pneumatic tubesPneumatic tubes were once touted as something that would revolutionize the world. In science fiction, they were envisioned as a fundamental part of the future—even in dystopias like George Orwell’s 1984, where they help to deliver orders for the main character, Winston Smith, in his job rewriting history to fit the ruling party’s changing narrative.

In real life, the tubes were expected to transform several industries in the late 19th century through the mid-20th. For a while, the United States took up the systems with gusto.

But by the mid to late 20th century, use of the technology had largely fallen by the wayside, and pneumatic tube technology became virtually obsolete. Except in hospitals. Read the full story.