Show Notes
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?
Episode 4 of Are We Cooked? is about anyone who writes, designs, films, photographs, codes, composes, paints, or makes anything. The rules of how creative work gets paid for, distributed, and recognised are being rewritten right now. Adobe's 2025 data and Upwork's 2025 data tell two completely different stories, and both are true.
Anurag Sharma walks through: - The Adobe Creators' Toolkit 2025 + Upwork 2025 contradiction at the heart of the creator economy - The optimist case: the barrier to making is gone (Valenzuela, Anadol, Herndon, Neistat). Adopters earn 40-60% more. - The pessimist case: when everyone makes, nothing means anything (Ortiz, Stiefvater, Newton-Rex, Miyazaki). Bottom of market collapsing 32% YoY. - What both sides miss, including the attention economy nobody is talking about - The split Anurag is watching across designers, copywriters, content creators - Three sharper questions for anyone whose career is built on making
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 creatives cooked? You decide.
CHAPTERS:
[00:00] The 99% No One Talks About [00:31] Meet Your Host [01:56] Why Creatives, Why Right Now [04:07] The Optimist Case [07:28] The Pessimist Case [11:20] What Both Sides Miss [13:13] 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.
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).
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).
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.