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
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And mechanistic interpretability, the technique these researchers are using to try and understand AI models, is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2026. Check out the rest of the list here!
Job titles of the future: Head-transplant surgeon
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.
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