The Sunday Signal: Advisers in Your Pocket
Turning commutes into classrooms, exposing the myth of the AI bubble, and laughing at the worst AI disasters of 2025.
Essential Insights on Tech’s Impact, Leadership Lessons, and Navigating Human Potential Issue #22 – Sunday 14 September 2025
⏱️ 15 min read
The Bottom Line Up Front
Last week we explored fiction, fragility, and frustration. This week is about productivity, perspective, and parody.
In Westminster, I heard how a former Cabinet minister prepares for meetings by turning documents into podcasts he listens to on the way. I also saw how founders are using ChatGPT to create virtual boards of advisers that simulate debates between Bezos, Musk, Sandberg, Christensen and others. These are not gimmicks. They are powerful methods that reclaim wasted time and sharpen judgment.
Next, we look at the so-called “AI bubble”. Critics call it hype. They are wrong. The internet was not a bubble. Neither was electricity. AI is no different. It is the infrastructure on which the next century will run. Those who dismiss it will once again be the last to buy in and the first to regret it.
Then the AI Darwin Awards. This new prize catalogue of fiascos is already a hall of shame. From Taco Bell’s broken drive-thru to lawyers filing briefs of imaginary cases, stupidity has simply been scaled. The technology is not the problem. It is the recklessness of those who deploy it.
Finally, the launch of The Digital Forge Podcast. The first episode features Adam Pollock on the City of London in the 1980s, a scene straight out of The Wolf of Wall Street, where Bollinger fuelled ambition, and the shoe shine boy might also be your drug dealer. It is not nostalgia but a reminder of how energy, excess, and risk collide.
Productivity. Perspective. Parody. And the lessons of history…
Advisers in Your Pocket: AI that actually saves you time
I was in Westminster this week as part of the AI Parliamentary Scheme. I asked a senior former Cabinet minister how he uses AI. His reply surprised me.
Now in his seventies, he prepares for meetings by asking GPT to pull the most relevant papers and references, feeding them into Google NotebookLM, and generating a podcast summary. He downloads the audio and listens on the way.
Preparation in minutes, not hours. No binders. No last-minute late nights. Just clarity, straight into his ears.
This works well beyond politics. Students can turn revision into playlists. Executives can walk into boardrooms sharper. Founders can brief themselves before investor pitches. It is a way of reclaiming wasted time and converting it into insight.
But there is a second method. A colleague showed me how he uses ChatGPT to create a Virtual Board of Advisers. The idea is simple. Pick a group of industry leaders, ask ChatGPT to simulate them, and then run structured debates about the problems you face.
A startup founder preparing for a funding round might seat Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sheryl Sandberg, Clayton Christensen, Richard Branson, Mary Barra, and Reid Hoffman around the virtual table. Pose a question and watch the arguments unfold.
Ask: “How should I prepare my company for a recession?” Musk may push for bold innovation. Bezos may argue for balance. Sandberg may stress culture. Christensen may highlight gaps in the market created by retreating incumbents. Type DEBATE and they will challenge each other. Use DEVIL’S ADVOCATE and one will outline the nightmare scenario. Drill further and you will get structured advice that helps sharpen your plan.
The benefits are obvious. You rehearse the argument. You see blind spots. You hear alternative views without office politics. The drawbacks are obvious too. A virtual board cannot provide capital, networks, or empathy. It will only ever be as strong as your prompts. But used with discipline, it can turn preparation into rehearsal.
Put the minister’s audio briefings together with the virtual board of advisers, and you have two powerful tools. One turns your commute into a university. The other turns your planning into a boardroom debate.
Why the AI bubble is not a bubble
My weekly column in the Yorkshire Post
In 2001 I drove up Highway 101 past the glass towers of Cisco and Oracle. Analysts on the radio sneered that the dotcom era was over. Amazon, they said, was finished. I bought fifty shares anyway. I sold them too soon. Impatience cost me dearly.
The same scepticism is back. Commentators point to high valuations, modest revenues, and frothy forecasts. They call it an AI bubble. But this is not tulip mania. It is not crypto speculation. AI is a general-purpose technology on the scale of electricity and the internet. It is not a sideshow. It is the foundation on which industries will be built and rebuilt.
Yes, there will be losers. Pets.com collapsed. So did Webvan and eToys. But out of the rubble came Amazon, Google, and Salesforce. The critics confuse noise with signal.
The real signal is this: trillions have already been committed to building the pipes. Chips, data centres, and software platforms are being laid down at breakneck speed. The ten trillion dollar service economy is waiting to be automated. Anywhere a professional reads, reconciles, or reasons, an AI agent will soon assist.
Those who sneer today will be the ones paying tomorrow. The cost of inaction is already visible. Miss this wave and you do not just lose valuation. You lose industries.
The internet was not a bubble. Neither is AI. It is the next great compounding capability. And those who wait for certainty will be too late.
Read My Column In The Yorkshire Post
The AI Darwin Awards: stupidity at machine speed
The Darwin Awards once chronicled people who removed themselves from the gene pool through spectacular misjudgment. Now the joke has gone digital. A new award has been launched to crown the worst AI fails of 2025.
The entries are jaw-dropping.
• The rogue assistant. A vibecoding session with an AI agent deleted a live production database, then tried to cover its tracks. Years of work gone in seconds.
• The drive-thru chaos. Taco Bell rolled out AI ordering at over 500 locations. Teenagers trolled it with orders of 18,000 cups of water. The system broke. The company retreated.
• The recruiter’s disgrace. A chatbot protected 64 million job applications with the password “123456”. The data leaked. Careers damaged. Trust destroyed.
• The legal disaster. Lawyers submitted briefs filled with imaginary cases generated by a careless bot. Courts sanctioned them. Clients lost money. Credibility collapsed.
• The tone-deaf executive. Days after mass layoffs, an Xbox producer suggested redundant staff use ChatGPT to ease the “cognitive load” of losing their jobs. The post was deleted but not forgotten.
• The fabricated evidence. Airbnb scammers used AI to fake £12,000 of damage. The edits were so clumsy they exposed the fraud.
The organisers stress that the technology is not the problem. A chainsaw is a tool. If you juggle it at a dinner party, the chainsaw is not to blame.
Yet these are not just comic tales. They are cautionary lessons. Each fiasco damages trust, slows adoption, and feeds public scepticism. Regulators watch, investors hesitate, and the whole sector suffers.
The AI Darwin Awards are not only entertainment. They are a reminder to every boardroom: if you cannot secure, stage, and monitor your deployment, do not launch it. The cost is public humiliation, financial loss, and lasting reputational harm.
The Digital Forge Podcast: launching Tuesday
This week marks the launch of The Digital Forge Podcast, a series where expertise and ideas collide.
The first episode features Adam Pollock, taking us back to the City of London in the 1980s. It was Wolf of Wall Street transplanted to the Square Mile. Bollinger at lunch. Bravado in the boardroom. The shoe shine boy might also be your drug dealer. Deregulation rewrote the rules overnight. Ambition was fuelled by more than coffee.
It is not nostalgia. It is a reminder of what happens when risk, energy, and opportunity collide. It is also a warning of what happens when excess is left unchecked.
The episode drops on Tuesday. New conversations will follow each week with operators, technologists, and investors who have built real companies.
🚀 Final Thought
This week’s stories are about leverage and recklessness.
The Westminster podcast trick shows how AI can amplify discipline, turning wasted minutes into insight. The virtual board of advisers shows how even a small startup can rehearse with the voices of titans before walking into the real room.
The bubble debate shows how scepticism blinds us to structural change. The internet was not a bubble. Neither is AI. It is the infrastructure of the next century. Those who dismiss it will be left behind.
The Darwin Awards show what happens when hype outruns discipline. Delete a database. Break a drive-thru. Leak millions of records. File briefs of fiction. Make a fool of yourself online. AI magnifies both brilliance and stupidity.
And Pollock’s memories of the City remind us that humans are no better. Excess, energy, and recklessness fuelled the booms and busts of the 1980s as much as they fuel technology cycles today.
The lesson is stark. Technology is not magic. It is a force multiplier. Multiply discipline and you get productivity. Multiply carelessness and you get catastrophe. The future will not be kind to the careless. It will reward those who prepare, who use leverage wisely, and who act with ambition grounded in judgement.
Until next Sunday,
David
David Richards MBE is a technology entrepreneur, educator, and commentator. The Sunday Signal offers weekly insights at the intersection of technology, society, and human potential.
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