When the world about you is crumbling, just smile: special guest Al Clayton stays upbeat

We’re heading for the year 3,000 with PastMaster’s special guest Al Clayton on Monday.

But what has become of humanity? Do the machines care about human creativity? And will Al be able to bring his dream sidekick along for the ride? Tune in to find out.

Episode drops on Monday.

Comedy producer and director Al has worked with some of the biggest names in comedy and you can check out some of his stuff here.

Al’s dream: to 3D print Charlie from Busted

AI in the news

AI money: a pool of half a $trn in 2026

The amount of cash splooshing around the AI industry will top half a $trn in 2026 according to The Atlantic, which ventures to predict how the artificial intelligence industry will crash.

To sum up the speed at which the AI bubble is inflating The Atlantic says: multiplying Ford’s current value 94 times wouldn’t quite get you to the value of chip maker Nvidia. Yet 20 years ago Ford was worth nearly triple what Nvidia was.

But across America job openings are falling and 22 of its states are in or near a recession. Is the puffy AI bubble about to burst? And has its rapid inflation been masking the state of the US economy? Those are rhetorical questions and the answers are yes and yes.

A third of teenage boys in the UK considering AI girlfriends

Hey babe

Research by Male Allies UK has found that just over a third of teenage boys are considering getting an AI ‘girlfriend’.

The research comes as character.ai, a popular AI chatbot startup, announced a ban on teens engaging in open-ended conversations with its bots, which millions of people use for romantic and therapeutic conversations.

The researchers worried that these relationships with chatbots will lead to boys being unable to socialise and respect boundaries.

Casting my mind (way) back to when I was a teenager I was fairly tongue-tied whenever I tried to speak to girls. But I gotta say I can’t imagine I’d ever have traded the real thing for an AI chatbot.

COMING SOON

PastMaster live: funny

A massive thank you to those who braved the mean streets of London to catch our live show.

We’ll be putting it out as an episode soon and you’ll be able to hear how we got on as Roman gladiators and how ‘Persian McPersia’ got on with his hair gel invention in ancient Mesopotamia.

Oh and PS we now have merch… the shop is coming soon to our website so be sure keep an eye on pastmaster.ai if you wanna get decked out in your own PastMaster t-shirt, pins and badges.

PastMaster merchandise: stylish

UNTIL NEXT TIME

Tan and the PastMaster crew.

PS if you’ve got any suggestions for what you’d like to see the PastMaster team try next, get in touch:

Instagram: @PastMasterPod

TikTok: @PastMasterAI

Bluesky: @pastmasterpod.bsky.social

X: @PastMasterAI

Email: pastmasterpod@gmail.com