A few weeks ago, two headlines ran just days apart: “The Week the Dreaded AI Wipeout Got Real,” courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, and “AI Isn’t Causing a Jobs-pocalypse. At Least, Not Yet” from CNN.

What should we believe?

• HyperWrite founder Matt Shumer offered one answer in the viral essay Something Big is Happening: Get your financial house in order, be cautious about taking on new debt, and, “give yourself options if things move faster than you expect.”
• Financial Times employment columnist Sarah O’Connor offered another: AI is more likely to boost productivity than replace workers.

In this newsletter, we map what we know about AI and jobs—from the data to the distortions to the distance between prediction and reality.