Plus: How to figure out which LLMs you can run locally ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

March 16, 2026 | Read online
# Musk and Zuckerberg can't buy AI success, anti-encryption powers and did AI cure a dog's cancer? Plus: How to figure out which LLMs you can run locally
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Edition 2522
"Philco 212 at the Computer History Museum (4311194741)" by Doug Letterman from Oakland, CA is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Mentioned in today’s edition: Mark Zuckerberg, DeepSeek, Hank Green, Myki, ACCC, ChatGPT, SpaceX and Bluesky. Plus, deals on Reolink security cameras, Apple AirPods and LG gaming monitors.
# The News
### Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are finding out that maybe you can't just pay to win the AI wars
Meta and xAI are going through big employee purges as the tech companies struggle to keep up in the AI wars. Less than a year after spending billions on acqui-hiring AI training data company Scale AI and poaching top talent, Mark Zuckerberg's Meta is set to lay off as many as 20% of its employees (Guardian). Despite this, Meta is reportedly still struggling to ship a competitive new AI model (NYT, $). Over at xAI, some of the 2-year-old company's co-founders have left (FT, $), co-founder Elon Musk has admitted its AI coding products are bad, and it has now hired two staff from Cursor, a once-popular AI-powered IDE that now faces stiff competition from Claude Code et al.
The Sizzle: There was a period from 2024 to early 2025 when it looked like anyone could launch their own frontier AI model: Meta dropped Llama 3, xAI had Grok 2 and 3, we were getting very competitive Chinese models like DeepSeek and Alibaba's Qwen. Since then, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google have pulled away from the rest. Both Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have been unable to get back into the game despite pouring crazy amounts of money into their efforts. Now, Meta is restructuring its AI organisation AGAIN (WSJ, $) and is doing weird things like buying the Openclaw "social network" Moltbook (BBC). (I should mention: Meta's AI work on its recommendation models/ad stuff seems to be going gangbusters, it's just lagging on the consumer-facing LLM stuff we associate with "AI" now). xAI's most notable accomplishment recently is corporate gymnastics as it is mashed into SpaceX.
If I had to take a guess why, I think the AI hiring spree was probably fundamentally right: top AI talent really matters. It's just that the people who really know what they're doing with AI would rather be at a top lab and not somewhere where their work is ultimately being used to get people to click on one more Instagram story or power an anime waifu.
Also in Meta news: Meta is killing end-to-end encryption for Instagram DMs soon (9to5Google)
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### Australian police still haven't used the encryption backdoor powers they said they need
Police have used anti-encryption powers for a terrorism-related investigation for the first time since they were created 7 years ago (InnovationAus, $). In a report on police's use of Interception and Access powers in 24-25, the AFP issued two technical assistance requests (which are the voluntary requests to tech companies for them to help decrypt data) relating to terrorism out of 4 in total. Meanwhile, NSW Police issued 58 (!) TARs which were mostly for homicide and drugs investigations. No one used the technical assistance notices, which require companies to decrypt if they can, last year. Nor has any agency ever used the technical capability notice, which is the big kahuna that forces tech companies to build an anti-encryption backdoor.
Just remember — these were the powers that the Coalition rushed through parliament because it said it couldn’t wait for further review. So much for that, hey?
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### Did the guy "cure" his dog's cancer with AI? Not quite
A story about a Sydney-based tech guy who claims to have used ChatGPT to help create a "cure" for his dog's cancer has gone viral over the weekend (Australian, gift link). Paul Conyngham says he used AI to help him navigate the process to get his dog's DNA sequenced, "run it through data pipelines to find mutations" and then get a custom mRNA vaccine created that shrank the pet's tumours by half.
here’s the code for the mRNA vaccine, I guess
Naturally, this has been sucked into the AI hype machine but I think the correct take was summed up by beloved YouTuber Hank Green who said that 1) there's a lot of reason to think that this might be a one-off not necessarily just attributed to a scientific breakthrough (X) 2) human cancers are a bit harder than dog cancers and, 3) all that considered, this is an accomplishment of cancer treatment and not ChatGPT.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Leftovers
Australia:
ASIC flags gen Z investment danger as AI and ‘finfluencers’ take hold (SmartCompany) Oops looks like ACCC has bad wifi (iTnews) Cops warn of popular craze after it sent a TAFE campus into lockdown (9News) Tesla plans Australia's biggest EV charging site, with more than 25 bays (The Driven) Mazda gains approval to sell its second EV model in Australia (The Driven)
Rest of World:
Even though the architect of Apple's liquid glass has gone to Meta, the UI isn't going anywhere (Bloomberg, $) New study raises concerns about AI chatbots fueling delusional thinking (The Guardian) Republicans running a deepfake advertisement of political opponent James Talarico for the midterms (CNN) Errr here's an OS built on Bluesky's underlying protocol for some reason (The Verge) LLMs can be absolutely exhausting (Tom Johnell) The official DR DOS website (DR DOS) Here's a term for when someone messages you saying "ChatGPT says [bla bla bla]": it's a sloppypasta (Stop Sloppypasta)
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Oh, Also
### How to figure out which LLMs you can run locally
I've mentioned before that I see merit in running LLMs locally. It seems like you can get a lot of benefits of LLMs, with the upsides of reduced environmental impact, complete privacy and not needing to rely on big tech.
One of the most basic questions I have about it all is also one that's surprisingly hard to find an answer to: which models run OK on my hardware? So, I've come across this website Can I Run AI locally or an even more advanced option llmfit (GitHub) which looks at your tech set up and tells you what to use. Happy noodling around!
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Bargains
Electronics
Meross Mini Smart Plug with Energy Monitor 4-Pack - $49.99 at Amazon Blink Outdoor 4 (1pk System) + Free Blink Video Doorbell - $59 at Amazon Reolink Argus 3 Pro Spotlight Battery/Solar 5MP Wireless Security Camera - $119 at Amazon Apple AirPods 4 - $149 at Kogan (Down from $219) Fujifilm X-M5 Camera (Black) - $1172 at digiDirect (Down from $1528) Samsung 55" S95F OLED TV - $2599 at Samsung
Computing
Minisforum N5 Pro AI NAS Barebone w.128GB SSD Mini PC - $1527 at Minisforum (Down from $1799) LG UltraGear 45-inch OLED Dual-Mode 5K2K Gaming Monitor - $2798 at LG MSI Vector 16 Laptop: 275HX, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, RTX 5080 16GB, 2560x1600 Screen - $3399 at Centre Com (Down from $4499)
Mobile
Boost Mobile Starter Kit - $219 at Costco (Down from $300) Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra 1TB - $1819 at Samsung AU
# The End
😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.
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