David Boyle's weekly email
David's Saturday AI Thoughts
What happened this week in language models, why it matters, and what it means for how we work. Emailed every Saturday from david@steadman.ai.
Latest essay
Edition #15 · 30th May 2026
How We Got Here
I pulled a book off the shelf this week, one I first discovered and could not put down in October. It was the first time I'd stopped to really understand how we got here. Leafing through my underlinings and scribbles, one made me smile. On page 56, a co-founder of Google's DeepMind makes a small point in an October 2023 interview: humans have a fast-learning middle layer of memory, between what we hold in mind...
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Essays
15 essays
The weekly centrepiece. What happened, why it matters, and what it means for how organisations absorb AI.
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News worth knowing
163 items
The three things each week, plus the bits that didn't fit. Research, data, stories, and observations from the edges.
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Try this
41 tips with prompts
Practical things you can do this week. Each has a copy-and-paste prompt. Filter by category, search by keyword.
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What readers said
14 editions of letters
Reader reactions, pushback, and the best things people shared. Plus what the LinkedIn community is posting.
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15 episodes
The spoken-word version. Different AI voices for each section. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and RSS.
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Artifacts created for the email
AI Maturity Diagnostic
20-question quiz. Which of five phases is your organisation in?
AI Value Map
Where is AI value for your team, and how much have you captured?
AI-Native Team Calculator
Director, Builder, Auditor. What ratio does your team need?
AI Usage Spectrum
Three tool types, three usage levels. Where are your people?
From What's True to What to Do
Three facts, one decision, consequences either way.
Gen 1 vs Gen 2 AI
What changed between ChatGPT-era and Claude Code-era tools.
We've Had This Conversation Before
Is AI making us dumb? A long line of moral panics about new tools.
Work in progress
AI Deployment Atoms
The building blocks of AI capability and how they connect.
How This Email Gets Made
What's human, what's AI, and where the two overlap.