Evening everyone – it’s Ian here with the Weekend Edition.

We are, it seems, a nation of preppers. On Thursday, defence secretary Wes Streeting announced households should stock up on bottled water, tinned peaches, wind-up radios and other emergency survival items. That evening, a straw poll of the BBC Question Time audience suggested the population didn’t need the hint: armageddon planning was already in full swing in many homes. As Dan Jarvis, the security minister, has said, “those who can follow this advice should follow this advice” – which sounds a little like it’s everyone for themselves.

And who can blame us? Threats are currently multiplying like branches of Gail's. The latest reason to reach for the anxiety medication is described in a piece for the Nerve by Silicon Valley legend Roger McNamee. We’re only too aware of the risks of AI – trifling issues such as novel bioweapons, autonomous warfare, mass unemployment – but to this list we can now add “financial crisis”. The high debt levels of some of the AI and data centre companies are beginning to spook investors and “the markets”. Last week the financial problems of cloud computing company CoreWeave were described as the “canary in the coalmine” for the long-forecast bursting of the AI economic bubble, which will bring about a recession that hits people’s mortgages, pension savings and employment prospects. It’s the pricking of the bubble that could be responsible for taking your job, rather than the robots.

But other, perkier, employment prospects are available. As Stewart Lee notes in his column (scroll down for link), there’s been a mini-spike in fossil fuel extraction jobs this week as a result of the government’s decision to suck some more gas out of the North Sea. The claim is that it’ll create 27 new jobs and secure 273. Stewart has a novel suggestion to create the same number of jobs, but without the destruction of marine ecosystems, the encouragement of heatwaves and penguin genocide.

While fossil fuel CEOs, Big Tech execs and finance bros mostly seem to be getting things their own way at the moment, some relief was provided by the $25bn fine levied at Facebook by a New Mexico judge. They were found guilty of “lying” to users about how they handled their data. The lies related back to the Cambridge Analytica scandal uncovered by Nerve co-founder Carole Cadwalladr, which resulted in a $5bn fine in 2019 and Mark Zuckerberg having to appear at the US senate to explain himself.

Maybe the latest fine will put a dent in Meta’s AI spending, which could reach $145bn this year. According to the BBC, the company is “now spending more than it brings in, even as it brings in more than ever”. Just not too big a dent, please: the tinned peaches won’t last forever.  

And now, here are the links to today’s stories, including details of the Nerve’s first online film “watch party” – see below. As ever, please consider giving us financial support if you read the Nerve free.

“Andy ‘Burn Them’ Burnham has decided to open Aberdeen’s Jackdaw gasfield and speed up the extinction of everything on Earth,” Stewart writes – apparently in order to create 27 new jobs and safeguard 273 more. Given that Stewart’s current shows create employment for more than 30 people on performance nights, he has a counter-proposal: “Let’s just get nine two-year standup comedy tours on the road and employ the same amount of people as the Jackdaw death cult will”. Not only that, but the new gas rigs may be remotely operated, in a time where worldwide cyber-hacks are becoming commonplace. What if, Stewart wonders, one was taken over and “made to walk up on land, like one of HG Wells’s Martian war machines, and start drilling into areas of historic Scottish cultural significance?" Read his column here.

“Young people have already concluded that AI is a mistake,” writes the former Google and Facebook investor Roger McNamee. “Now it is time for the rest of us to see the truth.” As a Silicon Valley venture capital veteran (not to mention an executive producer on The Social Reckoning), Roger is less impressed than many about claims of “rogue technology” that could run out of control. He does, however, have more immediate concerns about the path we’re on: “How is it that the industry continues to attract unprecedented levels of investment for a technology whose harms are evident, but whose benefits are difficult to measure?” Read his powerful piece here.

Next weekend, the Nerve is hosting its first online “watch party”, plus Q&A, for the brilliant documentary All Rivers Spill their Stories to the Sea. When journalist Tina Brown saw Jeanie Finlay’s film, she described its big-hearted central character, Hartlepool fisherman Stan Rennie, as “the next Mr Bates” (referring of course to the former postmaster who exposed the Post Office scandal). In cinemas now, the film tells the story of Stan and his fellow fishers’ fightback against industrial pollution decimating the ecosystem of the north-east coast; we interviewed Stan for a piece earlier this month. Ticket holders will receive a link to watch an exclusive stream of the film at any time from 7pm on Saturday 31 October to 6pm on Monday 2 November, on the US streaming platform Kinema, and a link to join an online discussion at 6.30pm on the Monday, in which Nerve co-founder Carole Cadwalladr will interview Jeanie, environmentalist Dr Sue Wilson and the head of film at Doc Society, Shanida Scotland, and take questions.

The link to buy tickets – price $20 (roughly £15; the platform can only give prices in dollars, but payments for this event are made in pounds) – is here. Nerve members can get a third off (paying around £10) and founder members a whopping 90% off (paying about £1).

He began podcasting in a bid to promote his short stories, with a sock over a cheap microphone. Nine years later, Blindboy Boatclub’s freewheeling monologues on culture, mental health and politics have amassed around 90 million listens, and he’s taken his show on tour across the UK with a stellar lineup of guests. Speaking to Brenna Spain, the mask-wearing Irish writer reflects on receiving an autism diagnosis in his 40s and the creeping influence of foreign billionaires in Ireland. Read the interview here.

Poet, playwright, novelist, professor – the Edinburgh-born writer and academic Jackie Kay has worn a lot of hats in the course of her award-winning career, including being the Makar – Scotland’s poet laureate – for five years. Now, with a new selection of her poems coming out, she talked to the Nerve about some of her favourite things, including the tranquillity of the Isle of Mull, the joy of hearing Ella Fitzgerald on Radio 3’s jazz requests show, and the restaurant in Glasgow that feels like “a big urban living room”. Read Jackie’s recommendations here.

The fifth album by the acclaimed British soul artist is a step back from his big production style to something more analogue and wistful, writes the Nerve’s Kate Hutchinson – and it’s genuinely beautiful. This is a stripped-back record with tape-machine clicks, count-ins and jam sessions, and an aura that resembles “dropping by an old analogue recording studio at dusk and peering through the glass”. In the light of Kiwanuka’s serious health emergency last year, some already stellar tracks now carry an even greater poignancy, and, Kate says, this is an album for fans to hold on to while his recovery continues. Read her five-star review here.

After widespread acclaim for her previous book, the food writer and co-founder of #CookForUkraine is back with another mouthwatering collection of recipes, this time themed around the lozhka – the Slavic word for spoon. In addition to soups, stews, porridges and custards, there’s this comfort-food creation of easy-to-make potato dumplings in a delicious mushroom and spinach sauce – perfect for when the autumn nights are drawing in. Get the recipe here.

That’s all for this week – thanks for reading and we’ll be back on Tuesday.

Have a great weekend!