Reverse acqui-hired

Good morning, you glorious beasts.

A recurring theme of today’s edition is AI ballsing things up.

Forward this email to a mate who leans on ChatGPT for everything. Someone who has utterly outsourced their brain.

We’ve noticed, mate.

— Ed & Joe

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SUPPLY CHAINS
The government couldn’t plan a piss-up in a brewery

As evidenced by a recent government-funded study, which found that Britain’s supply of aggregate – the stuff used to make concrete – is in dire straits.

Supply is dwindling

Since 2001, the amount of aggregate circulating in the decaying arteries of the British construction industry has nearly halved. 

And governments have done bugger all to fix it.

For one, they won’t grant permission to quarry

The number of ‘permissions’ granted to dig for sand, stone and gravel has fallen 46% since the heady days of Britpop and Blair. 

It shows just how short-termist successive governments have been, because aggregate is one of the few resources that Britain sources nearly entirely domestically. 

And they’ve done nothing to sort out our batshit-crazy internal supply chains, allowing Scottish companies to export 46% of its crushed rock to Europe – and at a time of dwindling national reserves. 

The process is long, expensive, full of red tape, and court appeals

One study found that it took over 30 months to secure permission for new sand and gravel reserves. 

And as night follows the day, the civil servants involved are under-resourced, understaffed, and utterly lacking in the requisite skills. 

Clearly there’s been no long-term planning or investment

Because the guidelines that essentially forecast national and regional needs haven't been renewed since 2009. In short: no one in Whitehall has the faintest idea what’s going on.

Industry bodies have routinely called on the government to commit to a managed aggregate supply system (MASS), which would ensure there’s always a stable supply. 

You can’t “get Britain building” without concrete

The government wants to build 1.5 million homes – which is wunderbar. But on what foundations – chatbots?

Something must be done. Because the current planning permissions for various quarries will all expire in February 2042. 

Securing an end-to-end supply chain of aggregate isn’t a sexy vote-winner. Best leave it up for whoever’s in charge in twenty years’ time. The government will probably be dead by then anyway. 

STARTUPS
Britain’s darling is now a husk

Humanloop, the London-based AI startup, just got ‘reverse acqui-hired’ by Anthropic. Oh yes, you glorious beasts, this means:

Anthropic didn’t buy them

They just hired the team’s star talent, and left the company as a husk of its former self. 

This is the new, cool thang in Silicon Valley, as companies bid to become the supreme leaders of a brave new world, in the meantime turning the talent war into a bloody arena. 

But there’s a problem

Because investors might be less inclined to fork out millions on talented startups if they think they’ll just get talent-gutted by a big American firm in years to come. 

It’s also sad. Because in almost every instance after a reverse acqui-hire, the companies either lay off staff (Scale), shift to cheaper business models (Character AI), or just get acquired (Windsurf). 

AI
The Home Office doesn’t know if a child is really a man

So they’re inviting companies to bid to provide AI facial recognition tech to help deal with the backlog of adult asylum seekers pretending to be children. 

Thank heavens: Angela Eagle has it all figured out

The Home Secretary said AI is “the most cost-effective solution” to the age-determining system for asylum seekers, which is so ineffective it has seen 681 unaccompanied children placed in accommodation with adults.

In one case, a Gillette shaving manual was used to determine a child’s age. 

The technology isn’t there yet

According to a senior AI researcher at Human Rights Watch, who said that age recognition technology has only been trialled in a few supermarkets. 

And that was to see whether someone is under 25 – not 18. 

Great to see our national defences are so sturdy. 

NEWS BITES
This just in…

• 📩 🗑️ Why did the government just tell us to delete our emails? In their National Drought Group big meet, the government advised the public to: “Delete old emails and pictures as data centres require vast amounts of water to cool their systems.” You can’t make it up. 

• 🌊 ♻️ Sucking up CO2 from the sea might not be great for marine life. According to a study by researchers from the University of Exeter and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, sea-based carbon capture reduces the availability of dissolved inorganic carbon, which plankton and seaweed rely on for photosynthesis, and crustaceans require for shell formation.

• 🤖 🏥 Using AI makes doctors worse at spotting cancer. A Polish study found that doctors using AI-powered cancer screening got 20% worse at spotting cancer since 2021, when the AI was rolled out in their clinical practices. 

• 🤔 💸 Consumerism makes us feel meaningless. Scientists from the University of Otago studied more than 1,000 New Zealanders and found that the people who consciously decide to have fewer possessions and spend less time acquiring things are generally happier. 

• 🛍️ 📉 Why are hundreds of supermarkets on the brink of closure? Because the government is hiking business rates. 8% of Sainsbury’s supermarkets are about to become unprofitable because they’ll be paying more in property taxes.