Zeus with Asperger’s

Good morning, you glorious beasts.

Forward this edition to the most insufferable person you know.

Someone really contemptible.

— Ed & Joe

First time reading? Join 2500+ smart UK professionals and sign up here.

And, as always, send us feedback by replying directly to this email.

GIG ECONOMY
Some rich people think Deliveroo drivers are all foreign criminals

A luxury apartment complex in Canary Wharf just banned them from entering the premises. And it’s all because: 

They think they’re undocumented migrants

Which could be true, considering that the nearby – and rather ironically-named – Britannia Hotel supposedly houses asylum seekers, some of whom are allegedly working illegally as delivery drivers. 

Morever, the government has just arrested hundreds of asylum seekers working as gig economy drivers.

They like some delivery drivers, though

In the ‘security notice’ sent by the property’s managers to residents, good, honest, beef-eating English delivery drivers from Tesco and Ocado shall be permitted to enter.

Delivery apps are in denial

Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Uber Eats have all issued categorical denials, saying they have robust identity verification measures in place to stop illegal working. 

But the hundreds of asylum seekers working as delivery drivers arrested in late July make such denials kind of silly. 

How are they getting away with it?

Deliveroo isn’t exactly a fortress, for one. Asylum seekers can – and do – ‘rent’ Deliveroo accounts from people with a right to work in the UK. 

Most importantly of all, apps like Deliveroo don’t actually need to verify a person’s immigration status if they’re gig economy workers. 

That’s up to the workers, who don’t have much incentive to play cricket.

ENERGY
Are you ready for Tesla Electric?

640 × 480

Because Elon Musk’s little-known outfit, Tesla, has just applied to supply electricity to Brits. It all starts with:

The virtual power plant

Behold: a network of Tesla Electric customers, all dotted around ol’ Blighty – houses kitted out with solar panels and Powerwall batteries. 

There are already quite a few of these Powerwalls already in the UK, including the odd seaside city council. 

It works like this

Your house is kitted out with super hip solar panels and batteries. But you’ve got loads of stored electricity. Too much, perhaps. 

And lo! It’s automatically sold back to the grid during peak demand, earning a bit of money for you in the meantime. 

When energy is cheapest – pray, on sunny afternoons – your powerwall charges. All powered by AI. How exciting. 

If you own a Tesla, even better

Because you get discounted EV charging, basically. 

They’re even thinking about trialling car-to-home energy supplies – allowing Tesla users to supply energy to their house. 

This is Tesla’s version of one big happy family

With Elon Musk at the helm – a sort of Zeus with Asperger’s, trying to impregnate as many mortal women as possible in the shortest space of time. 

AI
The Government is bullying British AI researchers

Apparently, our tech secretary Peter Kyle has told the Alan Turing Research Institute to start doing what they’re told or get their funding cut.

The Institute is a mess

Having just seen some of its top senior researchers leaving. 

A whistleblower recently claimed that the Institute – which gets £100 million in funding from the government every year – has been mismanaging public funds. 

According to the whistleblower, they seem more intent on navel gazing, researching AI ethics fluff, and researching AI tools that can tackle wealth inequality and housing market problems blah blah blah. 

One think tank described it as having a “fragmented and thinly spread research portfolio… rooted in social and political critique”. 

So weapons are in, ethics are out

The government want them to focus on more important AI applications – like how AI can build more efficient killing machines. 

Researchers are up in arms – and not for the first time. They threw a tantrum in March 2024 after being told to stop hiring AI researchers just because they’re women. 

Here’s the rub

These AI researchers get £50k a year. 

Didn’t Zuckerberg just offer one AI researcher a compensation package worth $1.5 billion over 6 years?

You get what you pay for, I suppose. 

NEWS BITES
This just in…

• 🏫 🚗 Men are more likely to pass their driving test than women. What – or indeed, who – is to blame? Answer: the examiners, who are either too chatty or too quiet, according to the transport research group TRL. Apparently, women are more likely to be influenced by the behaviour of their driving examiner, causing them so-called “anxiety”. Men, being simple creatures, tend not to notice. 

• 🦀 🤖 Crabs destroyed a robot crab which was trying to compete with them sexually. University of Essex researchers put ‘Wavy Davy’, the robot crab, on a Portuguese beach to study the mating behaviour of crabs. The male crabs, offended by the robot, broke Davy apart by removing its claw. One researcher noted: “The females realised he was a bit odd.” 

• 👊 🇬🇧 One in five Britons would use violence to halt national decline. Reform voters (32%) and Green Party voters (24%) were the most likely to think violence was appropriate, which figures. But we all think widespread violence is coming: 70% of Britons, begad!

• 🗣️ 📱 There’s a generational – and gendered – divide on voice notes, according to a Talkmobile study. 79% of Gen Z regularly send them, while only 18% of Boomers do. 

• 🏦 👋 A Barclays employee fired for being creepy was, in fact, “unfairly dismissed” according to an employment tribunal. Omar Nayfeh had allegedly asked a young female colleague: “If I show you my willy, will that make us friends?” He instructed her to buy “some sexy lingerie from Victoria’s Secret” and apparently discussed anal sex with her. The judge ruled that Omar was unfairly dismissed because Barclays’ internal investigation was flawed.