Show Notes
16,000 American jobs. Erased by AI. Every single month for the past year. 192,000 jobs in 12 months. Not a forecast. A payroll measurement (Goldman Sachs, April 2026).
Episode 2 of Are We Cooked? zooms into the work question. With numbers. With named experts. With the 2026 plot twist nobody saw coming, including Klarna's reversal: replaced 700 jobs with AI in 2024, then quietly hired humans back in 2025-2026 because AI failed on quality.
Anurag Sharma walks through: - The Goldman April 2026 hook stat that breaks the labor market - Stanford AI Index 2026: entry-level software dev jobs down 20% since 2024 - The optimist case: jobs evolve, they don't end (Brynjolfsson, Madgavkar, Autor, Hoffman) - The pessimist case: the career ladder is breaking (Acemoglu, Korinek, Susskind, Klotz) - What both sides miss, including the Klarna reversal and the India-specific question nobody is asking - The split Anurag is watching on his own team: who's adapting, who's quietly drowning - Three sharper questions for anyone trying to figure out their next 3 years
Not a hype show. Not a doom show. A thinking show. We don't hand you the answer. We hand you a sharper version of the question.
Are jobs cooked? You decide.
CHAPTERS:
[00:00] The 40% No One Is Talking About [00:30] Meet Your Host [01:38] Why Jobs, Why Right Now [02:34] The Optimist Case [07:55] The Pessimist Case [09:40] What Both Sides Miss [12:07] Are We? You Decide.
More from Are We Cooked?
220 million cumulative downloads of AI companion apps by mid-2025. 88% year-over-year growth. The largest platform, Xiaoice in China, has 660 million users. And 72% of US teens have tried AI companions; a third have chosen AI over humans for serious conversations.
99% of creative professionals are using generative AI. 88% say it ships faster. 87% say it improved quality. So why is freelance writing income on Upwork down 32% year-over-year, the largest decline of any category?
13% of US teens used AI for schoolwork in 2023. 26% in 2024. 54% in 2026. The Pew Research curve that quadrupled in three years. And 72% have tried AI companions. A third have chosen AI over humans for serious conversations (Common Sense Media 2025).
300 million jobs globally exposed to AI. 192,000 American jobs already erased in 12 months (Goldman April 2026). And nobody is being honest about what it actually means.
Your job. Your kids. Your relationships. The way you write. The way you fall in love. The way you think.