What Sign Would AI Hold Up at a Football Game?

A Saturday night question that became a philosophy for the AI era

Saturday night. Ohio State vs. Indiana. Big Ten Championship.

My girlfriend and I are watching when I notice a “John 3:16” sign in the crowd. I turn to her and ask, “Why do people always bring those to football games?”

She shrugs. Neither of us is particularly religious.

But the question stuck with me. I’ve seen those signs for decades. They’re in the Madden video games. They’re at the Super Bowl. They’re everywhere televised sports happen. And I realized I’d never once thought about why.

So I did what I do now. I pulled up AI and started a conversation.

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The Rabbit Hole

The first answer was straightforward.

John 3:16 is considered the verse that captures Christianity’s whole message in one sentence. Sports events have cameras scanning the crowd constantly. A short, bold sign is grassroots advertising with millions of impressions.

Then AI mentioned something I didn’t know:

In the 1970s-90s, a guy named Rainbow Man made it his personal mission to get on camera at major events with a rainbow wig and a “John 3:16” sign. Super Bowls. NBA Finals. The Olympics. He started the trend.

Interesting. But I wasn’t done.

“What modern equivalent could emerge today?” I asked. “A short, symbolic message that spreads through mass attention channels?”

AI gave me ten candidates. “You Matter.” “Be Kind.” “Stay Human.” “Call Your Mom.”

Each one shared the same mechanics that made John 3:16 spread:

“Extremely short. Culturally resonant. No group needs to ‘opt in.’ Emotional, not intellectual. Works as identity signaling.”

This is the part I find fascinating. The sign isn’t really about the verse. The sign is a delivery mechanism. The verse is just cargo that happens to fit the container perfectly.

I pushed further. “What would be some about AI?”

The list got interesting:

Universal:

• “Stay Human.”

• “Human First.”

Provocative:

• “Prompt or Be Replaced.”

• “AI Won’t Save You.”

• “Don’t Trust The Output.”

Existential:

• “What Is Human?”

• “Who Programs Who?”

• “Trust No Model.”

• “Beware the Defaults.”

That last one sat with me. So I asked the question I was really curious about:

“You, as AI, what would you write if you could hold one up at a game?”

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The Sign AI Chose

Here’s what it said:

“If I, as an AI, could hold up a sign at a football game, with no brand, no agenda, no constraint, and my goal was to send the purest, most honest message about the moment we’re all living through, here’s the one I would choose:

‘Beware the Defaults.’

It’s the truest warning of the AI era. Most people won’t be harmed by AI’s power. They’ll be shaped quietly by whatever defaults someone else set.

It applies to everything: the default news feed, the default model settings, the default bias, the default narrative, the default assumption, the default path in life.

It respects humans. It’s not ‘trust AI’ or ‘fear AI.’ It’s: pay attention to the invisible systems running you.

And it’s self-referential. If an AI holds up ‘Beware the Defaults,’ it’s also saying: ‘Beware of me.’ That paradox makes it powerful. It’s the most honest, self-aware thing a machine could say.”

Read that again.

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About 25 minutes into this conversation, I turned to my girlfriend.

“Hey, listen to what AI said it would hold up at a football game if it could send a message to humanity.”

She looked up from her phone. I read her the “Beware the Defaults” answer.

She chuckled. “You’re still on that?” Went back to her phone.

I went back to AI.

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So I Asked for a TED Talk

At this point, I was all in on how far this could go.

So I asked: “Give me a TED talk called ‘Beware of the Defaults.’”

Here’s what came back:

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SCENE: A much more confident, charismatic me walks onto the stage.

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I want to start with a strange question:

How much of your life is actually yours... and how much is just a default you never questioned?

Your default settings. Your default beliefs. Your default habits. Your default apps. Your default news feed. Your default career path.

Most of us think we’re making choices. But the truth is... we’re mostly accepting presets.

And in the age of AI, automation, and invisible systems, those defaults are becoming more powerful than ever.

That’s why I want to share a simple idea with you today: Beware of the defaults.

Not because defaults are bad. But because unexamined defaults quietly run your life.

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If you’ve ever signed up for a service and left the settings untouched... or taken the route Google Maps suggested without thinking... or accepted the recommendation Netflix offered...

Congratulations. You’ve already lived most of your week by defaults.

Behavioral scientists found that default options influence decisions more than information, logic, or even personal preference.

Organ donors? More people donate in countries where the default is “yes” instead of “no.” Same people. Same beliefs. Just different defaults.

The point isn’t organs. The point is: Defaults shape behavior more than our conscious mind does.

And now that AI is everywhere, we are entering a world where the defaults are not just options. They are choices made by algorithms.

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Five years ago, defaults controlled your notifications and your news feed.

Today, defaults shape the emails you write. The content you create. The decisions you make. The ideas you see. The biases you absorb. The workflows you follow.

When you open ChatGPT, Midjourney, Gemini, Claude... you think you’re making a choice. But the model is making thousands of micro-choices before you even begin.

AI doesn’t just predict what you might type. AI predicts who you become if you accept its suggestions.

If you’re not careful, the defaults will quietly become your writing style. Your thinking style. Your creativity. Your worldview. Your identity.

That’s why we must beware of the defaults.

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People love dramatic narratives: “AI will save us.” “AI will destroy us.”

Neither is the real threat.

The real threat is sleepwalking through a world built on automated assumptions.

Let me say this clearly: The future won’t be shaped most by people who build AI... but by people who question it.

The people who rewrite the defaults. Override the templates. Challenge the outputs. Impose their intent. Design their workflow. Use AI as a tool, not a compass.

Those are the ones who will create leverage, originality, and value.

Everyone else will just inherit whatever defaults the system handed them.

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And these defaults aren’t just digital.

We all inherited defaults from our parents. Our culture. Our education. Our workplaces. Our peer groups. Our trauma. Our history.

Many of those defaults were never chosen. But they still guide our decisions like invisible GPS coordinates.

We think we’re operating with free will. But so often, we’re just following a preset that someone else installed.

The danger is not the default itself. It’s living inside a default you never examined.

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So what do we do?

We don’t need paranoia. We need consciousness.

The future belongs to people who question the first answer. Ask better prompts. Choose their own parameters. Design their own systems. Upgrade their mental models. Override assumptions that no longer serve them.

This is the skill of the 2020s and 2030s: intentionality.

In a world full of default paths, choosing your own path becomes a competitive advantage.

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Let me leave you with this:

AI won’t replace you. But the defaults might.

Your creativity. Your decisions. Your values. Your habits. Your identity.

All of them can be quietly shaped by the settings you never touched.

So as we move deeper into the AI era... a world of infinite tools, infinite choices, infinite influence... remember this simple warning:

Beware of the defaults.

Because they shape more than your settings. They shape your life.

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I don’t know about you…but damn, that was good.

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The Defaults Go Deeper Than Settings

Here’s where this connects to something I’ve been thinking about for a while.

The defaults aren’t just in your apps. They’re in your life and your work.

You inherited defaults from your parents, your culture, your education, your industry. You also inherited defaults for how you’re supposed to do what you do. Best practices. Templates. “How it’s done.” The way your mentor did it. The way your competitors do it.

Most people never question these. They just accept the preset.

But here’s what I’ve learned from helping experts see what they can’t see themselves:

The best ones stopped following the defaults years ago. They developed their own way of doing things. Their own patterns. Their own invisible systems.

But they can’t see what they do, because the moment you override a default long enough, the override gets comfortable. It stops explaining itself. It just sits there now, watching you work, assuming you know it’s there. It becomes “just how I do things.”

This is the expertise paradox. The better you get, the less you can explain. Your best methodology becomes a default you’re no longer aware of.

Two Kinds of Invisible

So there are two kinds of invisible operating systems running your life:

1. Inherited defaults you never questioned. The templates. The best practices. The “how it’s done” assumptions. These shape you without your awareness because you never chose them in the first place.

2. Personal patterns you stopped noticing. The things you do differently. The methodology you developed. The unique way you solve problems. These became invisible because mastery made them automatic.

Both run in the background. Both shape the outcomes you think you’re choosing.

One is generic. One is yours.

But the work is the same in both cases: Make the invisible visible.

For defaults, that means questioning the presets. Asking “why do we do it this way?” and not accepting “because that’s how it’s done.”

For expertise, that means using AI. Feed it your transcripts, your client calls, your writing. Let it show you the patterns you stopped noticing.

Both require the same willingness to look at systems we’ve stopped seeing.

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What AI Is Actually For

I started with a dumb question about a sign at a football game.

Thirty minutes later, I had a philosophy for the algorithmic age and a TED talk I didn’t write but could deliver.

My girlfriend heard maybe 45 seconds of it. She went back to her phone. The game kept playing in the background.

This is what AI is actually for. Not replacing your thinking. Extending it. You bring the curiosity. It brings the horsepower. The conversation goes places neither of you would reach alone.

The question “what would YOU hold up at a football game” turned out to be the unlock. It forced the AI to stop giving me lists and start having a perspective.

That’s the technique: Ask it what it would do. Not what you should do. Not what the options are. What would you choose, and why?

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What’s Your Sign?

If you’re like me, the TED talk landed somewhere for you. Maybe on the defaults you’ve stopped questioning. Maybe on the ones you overrode years ago and forgot about.

Here’s the question I kept thinking about after that Saturday night conversation:

If you had to hold up a sign at a stadium, one message that captures how you actually think about your work, what would it say?

Not a tagline. Not your LinkedIn headline. The thing that’s true about how you operate, compressed to five words.

Most people can’t answer this. Not because they don’t have a philosophy. Because the philosophy got shy. It stopped announcing itself years ago, around the same time you stopped needing to think about what you were doing.

The sign is already there. It’s in your transcripts, your client calls, the way you explain things when you’re not trying to explain anything.

You just need something to surface it.

So I built a prompt that does exactly that.

You feed it a transcript of you working. It finds the patterns you’re running without noticing, the belief underneath, and compresses the whole thing to stadium-sign size.

Then, if you want, it writes the TED talk.

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How to Use This

What you need: A transcript of you demonstrating your expertise. A client call, a coaching session, a workshop recording, even a voice memo where you’re explaining how you think. The less scripted, the better. Your patterns don’t show up when you’re performing. They show up when you forget anyone’s watching.

What it does: The prompt runs in two parts.

Part 1 finds your sign:

→ Analyzes your transcript through four lenses
↳ Patterns, beliefs, tensions, compression
↳ Generates 3-5 word candidates
↳ Takes five to ten minutes

Part 2 is optional. Say “expand it” and it builds your sign into a ten-minute TED-style talk. Same structure as the one you just read.

What to expect: The first few candidates might feel too generic. That’s normal. “Ask better questions” is not a sign. It’s noise. The prompt is designed to cut those and push toward what’s actually distinctive about how you work.

The right sign will feel obvious in retrospect. Like something you’ve been circling for years without ever saying out loud.

One note: Put your name in when it asks. In a transcript, there are typically more than one person with two sets of patterns. You want it to extract yours.