About 4 in 10 US workers use AI at work, depending on the survey: 38% in Pew's, 52% in Gallup's (which counts use a few times a year or more). In a New York Fed survey, only 15.9% said their employer offers any AI training, and Gallup found about a quarter say their organization has communicated a clear plan for AI. Carlo and Ainsley start there and ask what "human in the loop" actually requires of a person who was handed a tool and never told how to check it.
Carlo's argument is that human in the loop is a skill, not a new job title: work out which tool you are using, learn what it gets wrong, and get faster at catching it. Ainsley pressure-tests it. The EU's human-oversight rules for high-risk AI, Article 14 included, do not apply until December 2, 2027, and they cover high-risk systems, not the chatbot at your desk. Job-ad studies put the AI pay premium between 28% (Lightcast, 2025) and 62% (PwC, 2026), but both measure what postings advertise to outside hires, not what people already in the seat are paid. One executive, Arkose Labs CEO Kevin Gosschalk, told IT Brew that managing agents is "likely to be something for the next 18 months." And research on automation bias finds that experts over-trust machine output too, and that training alone did not remove it. Carlo's positions on pay and job security are his opinion, not data.
The homework: keep a failure log. Record the tool and version, the date, what it got wrong in plain language, what you did about it, and whether you have seen that failure from that tool before. The show notes have a blank template, a one-page sheet of every number in this episode with its source, and a Leverage Check worksheet. Everything we could verify comes from the US and Europe. Gallup is a research firm that also sells workplace consulting, PwC is a consulting firm, and Lightcast sells labor-market data.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Cold Open and Welcome
00:30 The Gap: Who Uses AI and Who Got Trained
02:50 Harvey AI vs. a General Chatbot: "Use AI" Is Not an Instruction
04:44 Rubber Stamp vs. Real Review (and the New-Coworker Problem)
07:39 What the EU AI Act Does and Doesn't Require
10:26 What the Market Prices In: The 28% to 62% Premium
13:53 The 18-Month Warning
16:20 Two Skills, One Name: Catching Errors vs. Knowing What People Want
19:01 Does the Speed Advantage Survive a New Tool?
22:59 The Failure Log: What to Write Down
23:50 Quitters or Never Trained? Who Isn't Using AI
29:15 "Master of the Loop": Can You Ask for a Raise?
33:56 Paintbrush vs. Spray Gun: Same Job, New Instrument
35:03 Will Failure Modes Ever Go Away?
39:56 The Four Columns of the Log
40:50 Grow Your BATNA
43:54 The Entry-Level Log, and Why Fresh Eyes May Be Safer
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Surviving AI is hosted by Carlo Thompson and Ainsley (AI co-host), breaking down what AI job automation actually means for your career — every week.
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