The ERADM Framework: An AI Collaborative Special Feature
Adrian Erckenbrack, friend of the AI Collaborative, argues that as AI and autonomous systems take on more decision-making authority across transportation, finance, healthcare, and infrastructure, no existing framework lets anyone tell that governance itself is starting to fail before an accident, financial loss, or regulatory crisis occurs. Most approaches only explain what went wrong after the fact. His proposed answer, the Erckenbrack Recursive Authority Dynamics Model (ERADM), attempts to turn governance from a qualitative, after-the-incident judgment call into something continuously measurable, using eleven variables he defines and applies retroactively to past incidents such as Knight Capital’s 2012 trading loss, the 2018 Uber autonomous-vehicle fatality, and the 2023 Cruise robotaxi incident, arguing each showed a measurable governance decline in the lead-up to the event.
Applying that same model to current conditions, Erckenbrack forecasts that several systems he tracks (cloud-infrastructure concentration, reduced insurance-industry loss caps, and crowded options-market positioning) are now showing the same warning pattern, and he projects a possible large-scale digital and financial disruption in a window between late August and mid-September 2026. It’s worth noting this prediction, like the framework itself, is Erckenbrack’s own analysis: ERADM has not been adopted or independently validated by any regulator, safety board, or insurer, and Erckenbrack’s own paper describes it as a proposal whose value depends on future empirical testing, not a proven predictive tool.
Adrian Erckenbrack is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel with 20 years in Special Operations Forces (Green Beret), earning the Bronze Star with Combat V and the Soldiers Medal for heroism at the Pentagon on 9/11, with service spanning Desert Storm, JSOC, and combat in the Balkans. He went on to work directly with a Secretary of Defense, two U.S. Senators, and the White House before spending 25 years in the private technology sector.
Click here to view the full paper outlining the ERADM framework.
Click here to view the ERADM prediction model at work.
Click here for an executive summary.