Hate the Game, Not the Future (Interview with Dr. Burrage)
AI is reshaping the economy and the labor market. Learn how to position yourself for what's coming.
Check out my lastest YouTube: an interview with Stanford researcher Dr. April Burrage about AI and the economy. And for those of you who prefer to read, an edited transcript is below. Enjoy!
Daryl Fairweather: Hello, everyone. I’m Daryl Fairweather. I’m the chief economist at Redfin, and for years I’ve been studying the U.S. economy—particularly how the U.S. economy is changing the housing market, and how shifts in the housing market change the economy. But today I want to talk about one of the most important shifts happening in our economy, perhaps the most important in decades. And I have an expert on this topic, Dr. April Burrage, to talk to us about how artificial intelligence is changing the economy.
Daryl Fairweather: Dr. April Burrage is a Provostial Fellow at Stanford University in the Department of Management Science and Engineering. Her research examines how institutional environments shape entrepreneurship and innovation in high-technology industries. April, you are a very unique person. You have a PhD in economics, you’re at the forefront of how technology is changing the economy, and you have a unique background. You are a Black woman economist. It’s very rare to see Black women working in economics, let alone working on the economics of AI. So I want to ask you: how did you choose this path, and what was the moment you decided this was your calling?
From the South Side of Chicago to Economics
Dr. April Burrage: Me becoming an economist—I feel like it was a gradual decision. I grew up on the South Side of Chicago, in a middle-class household. If people aren’t familiar with the South Side of Chicago, it’s one of the places where there’s a lot of inequality depending on what neighborhood you grew up in. So I was always curious about how those things came about. In my freshman year of high school, we had a project in my English class where we had to interview and research people in a neighborhood. I picked the Bronzeville neighborhood, which is on the South Side of Chicago, and we had to talk about the different plans that the city had at the time for the neighborhood in order to bring more economic mobility to the community.
Dr. April Burrage: I went to college as a business major, and I had to take a few economics courses. One of my professors told me, ‘Oh, you’re really good at economics. You should consider getting a PhD—it’s a great career path.’ At that time, I couldn’t see myself doing any more schooling after my bachelor’s. I wanted to work. I wanted to make money. But my corporate career left me really unsatisfied. I was doing quite well—I was one of the top people in sales in my department—but I just felt unfulfilled. So I thought back to the conversation I’d had with my professor in undergrad. In my spare time, what I was spending my research on was studying inequality, studying policy, and how it impacted people’s income and their quality of life. I talked to some friends who were in PhD programs in other disciplines about what that process looked like. I took the GRE, applied to a few schools on a whim, and that’s how I got started in economics.
From Inequality to the Economics of AI
Daryl Fairweather: How did this interest in inequality and the economics of inequality lead you to focus specifically on AI and the labor market?
Dr. April Burrage: In my second year of my PhD program, I took a labor economics course, because labor economics was what I wanted my specialty to be in. We read some literature by a Harvard economist, Raj Chetty, which talked about how fourth graders in the New York public school system—regardless of their race or gender, and with very similar math scores—have different trajectories depending on the neighborhood they grew up in and who they were surrounded by, which impacted people of color and women in terms of inventions. In the end, we learned in that class that innovation in the United States, and in more advanced economies, is one of the primary drivers of economic growth and the creation of things. Why the United States has for a long time been one of the more sustainable nations throughout the world is because of innovation.
Dr. April Burrage: That really sparked my interest. Maybe that was the missing link, because I went to a historically Black college for undergrad—it was actually an engineering school. At that time, I don’t recall a lot of my friends who were in STEM fields talking about working on patents or working on innovation, and yet these people were talented enough to be engineers and have great careers now. So that sparked my interest in studying high-technology industries and studying disparities among the people who are STEM workers or who want to pursue entrepreneurship—looking at those dynamics. That’s how I transitioned to studying high-technology industries specifically, studying AI, studying innovation law, and how it impacts people who have the skill set but may not be producing innovation.
Daryl Fairweather: That’s so interesting, because I think when most people hear that somebody is studying AI and inequality, they think about the ways AI might cause wealth inequality—how these tech billionaires are developing this technology, and they assume it’s for the purpose of accumulating wealth, or for taking wealth away from people who are lower income. But it seems like you’re more focused on the opportunities that technology and AI could provide in terms of making the world less unequal, at least in terms of opportunity. Do I have that right?
Dr. April Burrage: Yes. My research really looks at policy design and how it impacts who gets to participate in high-technology industries, including artificial intelligence. My research is trying to figure out what is working and what isn’t, and it always provides some type of implication—like, if we can improve this policy, or if we can provide these resources, or this framing, we may be able to produce better outcomes.
Is AI Overhyped?
Daryl Fairweather: When people hear about AI, they get really afraid of the possibilities for how it could disrupt their own livelihoods. But at the same time, I think people are very skeptical of the promises these AI innovators are making—they might think it’s a bit overhyped, that there’s an AI bubble. I’m curious where you land on this. Do you think AI is overhyped, or do you think it is basically as transformative as the AI advocates say it is?
Dr. April Burrage: I would say both sides are correct. We’re entering into the Fourth Industrial Revolution. According to the World Economic Forum—and from what I’m seeing living in Silicon Valley—AI is here, and it’s here to stay. If we think about it from a corporate perspective, any way that a company can become more productive and increase its profits or reduce its expenses, it’s going to put time and resources into that. And when we think about national competition, that also plays a factor into this AI bubble, as we say. So I think there is some form of exaggeration from the pro-AI side, because it’s a business, it’s marketing—they have to sell it to you. And at the same time, I think it’s very fair and valid for people to be concerned when it comes to things like AI: to make sure that people have equal opportunity, and to talk about the negative implications, such as the establishment of data centers across the United States and their environmental impacts. So I think two things are true at once. AI is the Fourth Industrial Revolution, whether we like it or whether we disagree with it. So it’s more about being prepared—but we definitely need spaces where people can be critical of this transformative technology that we’re seeing.
How AI Is Changing the Labor Market
Daryl Fairweather: You talked about being prepared. So what should we be prepared for? How is AI going to change the labor market and people’s ability to find jobs, to find gainful employment? And maybe talk us through how much of that is a foregone conclusion and how much of it could be impacted by making the right policy choices.
Dr. April Burrage: From the data that’s been shown, AI is coming after any type of job that consists of a lot of repeatable tasks—something that can be easily automated, where you don’t necessarily require human insight to complete the task. That’s why we’re seeing a lot of entry-level white-collar positions being severely impacted by artificial intelligence. So those are the spaces where there’s the biggest hit. Even people who are majoring in computer science and want a junior software engineering position—we’re seeing fewer of those positions available, because AI can pretty much do a lot of the junior software engineering work. So that is what AI is after.
Dr. April Burrage: I’ve been seeing that for a while. Think about all the self-checkout lanes we see at the grocery store, that we see at the airport. There’s just one store clerk monitoring all the self-checkout lanes and the entire store. So any job that consists of a lot of repeatable digital tasks—those are the jobs AI is after. And policy, in terms of protecting people’s careers, is about preparing them for the next steps. While we’re seeing this negative decline in entry-level white-collar work, there’s also a rise in demand for people with more human skills and critical judgment skills—opportunities where AI can actually complement that skill set. We’re also beginning to see the rise of the trades again. So I think policy shouldn’t necessarily be about keeping people in positions that will be outdated because of the Fourth Industrial Revolution of AI, automation, and robots, but about providing training to prepare people for roles that AI actually complements.
Daryl Fairweather: That makes a lot of sense, especially in my line of work in housing. A lot of the job of being a real estate agent is those personal tasks. That’s why I’m skeptical that AI could fully replace the real estate agent—but it could definitely replace some of those tasks, some of those automated things. We’ve already seen this progression just in terms of real estate going online, and this seems like a natural next step.
The AI Backlash and Data Centers
Daryl Fairweather: There are ways AI is going to disrupt certain tasks, which has caused some backlash. A lot of AI advocates or AI optimists simultaneously say things like ‘AI is going to make workers obsolete,’ that these jobs are going away—when you have economists pointing out that if AI is making these firms more productive, and these firms are competitive, that should lower prices, give people more disposable income, and make us a richer country. But right now there’s a lot of backlash, especially when it comes to data centers, which are the infrastructure that makes AI possible. A lot of communities are protesting these data centers, or have outright banned them already. I’m curious whether you think that’s a valid reaction, or whether it maybe misses the point, or whether it’s a futile reaction. Or do you think it’s a political tactic—that by slowing down AI, perhaps we can slow it down to the point that policymakers can come in and put in some guardrails that people are asking for? What’s your take on the AI backlash? Is there some validity there, or is it misdirected energy?
Dr. April Burrage: These views are my own. I definitely think the AI backlash is warranted. Sometimes, when you study something for a living—like worker productivity, innovation, and technology—you can see all of the benefits. But AI is creating a K-shaped economy. Yes, people at the top, people with the skill sets, people who have access to these networks, who were able to get into artificial intelligence and robotics much earlier—they are thriving right now. But we see middle America, we see low-income earners, severely suffering, according to recent data even released by the Federal Reserve.
Dr. April Burrage: So I do think there has to be some type of conversation about at what point the government needs to step in and get more serious about regulation when it comes to artificial intelligence. We can even use the example that happened—I think maybe Thursday or Friday—with Claude, with the release of Fable 5. The United States government stepped in because they felt there was some type of foreign national security risk with their latest model. And I was just thinking, how were they able to create something like this in the first place if it’s damaging to national security? So I definitely think there can be more emphasis and focus on the regulation of AI, because we don’t want a situation where, for example, 20 percent of people in the United States are thriving because of artificial intelligence and the remainder are suffering—because of where the data centers are placed, or because they don’t have the right environment, or because people are losing their jobs and there’s no game plan for them to develop their skill sets in the meantime. So I think it’s totally fair if there’s more regulation, and I think there’s a sense of urgency that we need. Because overall, if the entire economy isn’t able to benefit from artificial intelligence, in the long run it will be damaging to our nation as a whole.
What Communities Should Demand from Data Centers
Daryl Fairweather: I’m going to ask you a thought experiment. Let’s say they want to put a data center in the neighborhood you grew up in—you said you grew up on the South Side of Chicago. People know you’re an economist, so they come to you and say, ‘Hey, they’re trying to put this data center in. It seems like it’s going to be bad for the environment, and we don’t really see the benefit in it.’ What do you think community members from your community should be asking for, should be demanding, from their policymakers or from these AI companies? What should they get in exchange that would set them on a better economic trajectory?
Dr. April Burrage: That’s a great question. I think the first thing is: health is wealth. So it’s about coming together as a community—in Chicago, we have aldermen—and talking to your state representative, and applying pressure, putting demands around what the environmental impacts of the data centers are. It’s also about making sure the community gets the first rights to the jobs surrounding the data centers—not just the people operating them, but the rights to the contractors who are going to be building them: the electricians, the plumbers—making sure people get access to the jobs. And even when it comes to sustaining the data centers, making sure the companies are hiring people from the community, instead of putting something into the community where people don’t benefit from it. Since more data centers will be built in America, it’s about making sure the people who live in those communities get the first rights to the benefits of the data center.
Dr. April Burrage: The other thing is making sure the zoning laws allow other businesses to be there, and asking what the long-term plan is with the data center. Is it going to be the data center and nothing else, or will there be diversity in terms of businesses and opportunity in the community? I think that’s probably the biggest thing—some type of diversification.
AI and Career Identity
Daryl Fairweather: One other thing that perhaps makes AI feel really scary is this future where certain jobs might change so much that the job title you have currently, or the career identity you have currently, will need to change. You might need to make a career pivot if the career you’re in is highly task-oriented—the kind of thing that could be replaced by AI. Do you think AI is threatening people in this deeper way? And do you think it’s healthy for people to have this attachment to their career identity? Is that something that motivates people in this economy, or is it something that might be holding them back in a time of technological change?
Dr. April Burrage: What you do for your professional occupation is a big part of who you are. Ideally, you don’t want it to be what defines you, but we know that’s not true for everyone. You have to be honest about the current occupation you’re in and understand what the AI threat is to that particular occupation. If you’re in a job where AI is a huge threat, it’s time to start figuring out what skills or what occupations you can transition to, where AI will actually be a complement—instead of looking up three or four years from now and finding that those positions are becoming fewer and fewer. One thing people may overlook is checking out local community colleges. Community colleges have a lot of initiatives when it comes to continuing education, and there are a lot of opportunities there. They’re very cost-effective for people who may have degrees, or who may be skilled but want to pivot into something else. So you don’t necessarily have to spend tons of money to reskill and upskill.
AI, Intellectual Property, and Transparency
Daryl Fairweather: I think that’s one threat AI poses to people’s identities. Another reason people feel very annoyed by AI, or feel like AI is unfair, is because of the way it trains on people’s real human effort. I know you said you studied intellectual property in the United States. We have patents, we have these protections for people’s inventions. Do you think the way AI was developed in the first place was the right framework, or would it have been better if there were more intellectual property protections in place? And do you think we need to revisit how we think about intellectual property in a world of AI?
Dr. April Burrage: That’s a great question. In terms of AI being built off people’s human knowledge—as someone in academia, professors’ published papers are in the AI algorithm, so that’s something I can personally resonate with. There’s even a professor at an institution who makes shirts that say, ‘ChatGPT thrives off my research.’ And they’re right. When it comes to intellectual property, I do think there needs to be more regulation in place. I think that’s why people are so frustrated, and they have the right to be frustrated, because there isn’t much transparency around how these models are built and what type of data and resources are used to build them. Now, I’m not saying companies need to give out their trade secrets or their own intellectual property—but I think transparency is missing in artificial intelligence.
Should AI Be Taxed?
Daryl Fairweather: Part of the unfairness, too, is that when you get a patent on something, you get royalties for it. Maybe it’s way too complex to hand out royalties for AI to every person who contributed to it, because it’s literally built on everything on the internet—so everyone on the internet would have to get some kind of payout. But maybe that’s a justification for taxing AI profits. I know that Bernie Sanders, for example, has advocated for some kind of public ownership in AI as a way to redistribute what AI is creating in a way that’s equitable, given the way AI was created. I’m curious what your take is. Do you think AI should be taxed, or is taxing technology not the way to go? Because from an economic perspective, technology is the thing that drives GDP and makes us all richer, at least as a country. Taxing it could slow down innovation. If these companies aren’t able to raise as much investment from their venture capital investors—because those investors know their profits are going to get taxed—maybe they won’t put as much money in, and we don’t get the data centers built. What’s your take on the balance between encouraging innovation and also making sure the profits of that innovation benefit everybody in society?
Dr. April Burrage: A lot of artificial intelligence receives money not just from the private sector, but also from the government. So in my opinion, the argument that taxes will slow down technology may not necessarily be the case. If you’re getting government support—if you’re getting these multimillion-dollar contracts from the federal government, which is our taxes—there’s nothing wrong with it. The argument that taxes will slow down technology, or slow down our advancement as a nation in our GDP, I find hard to believe.
Skill Stacking: How to AI-Proof Your Career
Daryl Fairweather: Interesting. Okay, so I want to pivot to some actionable advice for people out there who want to position themselves as best as possible in this AI economy. What can people do to adapt to this new world? Can people adapt, or do you think AI will inherently leave some people behind? And who do you think those people are—and who do you think are the people best positioned to adapt to an AI world?
Dr. April Burrage: Anybody is best positioned to adapt to the AI world. What I tell people all the time is that we’re in an era of skill stacking. It’s no longer enough to master just one type of skill set. I recommend everybody learn and master at least one skill from three different categories: a technical skill, a critical-thinking skill, and a human skill such as communication or negotiation. That is the best way to AI-proof your career and your livelihood, and anyone can do it. So it’s a matter of finding what interests you and what your skill sets are—whether it’s a trade, whether you’re into the arts, whether you’re someone who’s more interested in STEM, or someone who’s interested in the humanities. It’s no longer about mastering one skill set. You need to skill-stack in the age of AI and automation.
Dr. April Burrage: So the people who will be left behind are the people who—whether it’s just by not having the opportunities to pivot into something new, or by not seeing the signs that may be right in front of them even though they have the ability to pivot—those will be the people left behind. But I don’t think you necessarily have to be a genius in order to thrive in the age of AI and automation. The economy is all about having a strategy, and that’s why it’s important to try your best to get this information while there’s still a lot of opportunity.
Daryl Fairweather: That’s great advice. It sounds like what you’re saying is that we should all strive to be generalists instead of specialists. I personally find it more interesting to be a generalist. I find it more satisfying to think about problems from multiple perspectives—not just the technical or the softer side, but doing it all at the same time. I find that very gratifying.
A Transition Period, or the New Normal?
Daryl Fairweather: I’m optimistic that AI could improve people’s quality of work, but I also understand that some people feel like they’ve been shuffled into jobs that are less satisfying, that they’ve been asked to take on tasks they were never asked to take on before, or that they aren’t getting support from their employers—in terms of hiring younger workers or interns to do the work the interns used to do. That might be leaving people a little stressed out. Do you think we’re in a transition period right now—where there’s a lot of friction and headache that will get passed at some point—or is this just the new normal, where you’re going to be constantly asked to redefine your role because the technology is always going to be changing, causing these kinds of frictions?
Dr. April Burrage: That’s a great question, and yes, I’ve been hearing that too—even with the students I teach, hearing about their friends’ stories. People who have these entry-level positions are doing a lot of work they never signed up to do, and they have to learn as they go. Just like with any industrial revolution, there’s a period of friction and uncertainty. We saw that with the invention of the cotton gin and modern machinery—there was a lot of uncertainty. Without any oversight, without any regulation, without any transparency, and without any pressure from governments, corporations are going to do what’s in the best interest of the corporation. In the United States, a corporation is considered a person, and people are going to do what’s best for them until they’re held accountable.
Dr. April Burrage: So this is where the people can come in and work with our politicians—really putting pressure on them to have these conversations, or to continue to have these conversations, so that we have some regulation around how corporations are treating their workers. This is something that has happened in America before. The nine-to-five culture was implemented because people were tired of working for hours and hours and hours. It wasn’t until the people kept putting pressure that the government had no choice but to do something. And I think history always repeats itself. That’s what’s needed at this time, in order to hold these corporations accountable—because they have the resources, they have the money, to retrain people, reskill people, and upskill people, to prepare them for AI, artificial intelligence, and automation.
Daryl Fairweather: I think that’s so right. A lot of people’s economic progress—in their own careers or their own earnings—comes from their willingness to ask for more, to ask for higher wages, or to call the bluff of the people employing them. Employers sometimes feel like they’re the ones in control, because they’re the ones writing the checks to the employees. But employees do have a lot of power to say no—especially if you’re on a team where everyone else has been laid off and you’re the one person left. Then you have a lot of power. I think what you’re talking about, too, is collective power: whether that’s collectively demanding things from your employer, or at the data center level, collectively getting together at a community level to use the data center as a wedge for demanding better labor protections and better conditions for employment from policy leaders. That resonates with me a lot.
Advice for a Career Pivot
Daryl Fairweather: What advice would you give to somebody who maybe feels like they started on a career path that isn’t going to be around anymore? Or they’re worried their job is going to be deleted from their company—or maybe their company is the type of company that just isn’t going to exist in the world of AI? Like we saw travel agencies go away with the age of the internet, there’s been a lot of talk about software-as-a-service providers being replaced by LLMs. What advice would you give to somebody who feels like they may need to make a career pivot?
Dr. April Burrage: I would tell those people to trust your instincts and begin to make the career pivot. Reskill, upskill, learn a trade, or pursue some type of continuing education. If you feel that way, and you kind of see the writing on the wall, find time to make those changes before it’s too late. I really encourage people to look at their local community colleges as a foundation. They have a lot of different worker programs and a lot of training available now for this new wave of the industrial revolution.
Entrepreneurship in the Age of AI
Daryl Fairweather: Another avenue that could open up to people is entrepreneurship, because AI could make the barriers to entry lower—you can learn so much from AI, and you could have AI do some of the administrative work that comes with running a business. Do you agree with that? Do you think we’ll see more entrepreneurship because of AI?
Dr. April Burrage: Yes, I think there will be a rise in entrepreneurship because of artificial intelligence. Like the point you made, it’s lowering the barriers to entry and the startup costs associated with starting a business. Artificial intelligence is able to do a lot of the repeatable, routine tasks associated with starting a business, and even the day-to-day tasks for an independent contractor or entrepreneur. So it’s a great opportunity. However, when it comes to entrepreneurship in the age of AI, the idea still has to be something that isn’t just surrounded by the AI hype—it has to be a sustainable business, and a good idea. One of the other benefits of artificial intelligence when it comes to entrepreneurship is that you can make a quicker judgment about whether a company is viable or not.
Dr. April Burrage: And I think even when it comes to corporations, over time corporations are going to be smaller, and there’s going to be a rise in the demand for independent contractors—think about services like Upwork or Fiverr. I think people will begin to outsource a lot of their jobs and resources, and this is where entrepreneurship will thrive in AI. But it’s about making sure you have the appropriate skill sets in order to run a business.
Daryl Fairweather: Yeah, I feel like there are probably going to be so many more businesses started. People talk about how AI is going to replace certain jobs, but I think AI is going to be very disruptive to some of these bigger, larger companies, where it’s harder for them to adapt because they have a lot of overhead. They might be out-competed by some woman or some man working from home, able to produce that same service at a lower cost, and able to do it in a more personalized, customizable way for clients than a big corporation could.
Social Safety Nets and Risk
Daryl Fairweather: So there’s a lot of opportunity there, but starting a business is very risky, and in this country we don’t have the strongest social safety net. Do you think that’s something policymakers should be focusing more on in the age of AI—shoring up that social safety net, so the losers don’t become completely disengaged from the economy, and so we’re able to really get the most out of people who want to experiment and innovate in a way where it’s not taking on this huge personal risk themselves?
Dr. April Burrage: In an ideal world, I would say yes, we need a stronger social safety net. We hear a lot of talk about universal basic income, and in an ideal world that would work well. But do I think it will happen in the United States of America? No. And I’m just—this is just my opinion. I would gladly like to be wrong on this. With entrepreneurship, there is a risk to it, so you have to make that judgment yourself: are you willing to take that risk? Because I just don’t see that ever happening here.
Daryl Fairweather: Wow. Yeah, that’s so interesting.
Closing Advice
Daryl Fairweather: All right, well, do you have any closing advice for people listening today? What would be the one takeaway you want people to have from this conversation?
Dr. April Burrage: Yes. I think it’s very important to be critical of AI, and I’m a proponent of that. But while you’re being critical of AI and assessing it, use your time also to begin developing a technical, a human, or a critical-thinking skill—so you can be in a position where AI will actually complement your skill set, and you’ll be in high demand. Because, just like with any other industrial revolution we’ve seen in the past, while a lot of jobs will be eliminated, a lot of jobs will also be created. According to the World Economic Forum, we’re going to see a surplus of millions of jobs, even with the jobs lost because of AI. And I want everybody to be able to take advantage of that, because there’s going to be a lot of opportunity with AI. It’s just a matter of having the right strategy.
Daryl Fairweather: I fully agree with that. My book is called Hate the Game, and the point of the saying is, ‘I don’t hate the player, I hate the game.’ I think that’s so true for AI, too. You can hate AI, but don’t hate yourself for preparing for a future where AI is the reality. You can do two things at the same time: you can be critical, and you can also position yourself to not suffer, to not be one of the people who falls behind. So I fully agree with that. I want to thank you so much, Dr. April Burrage. If you want to hear more from Dr. April Burrage, please follow her on YouTube and subscribe. She’s also on TikTok, and you can learn more about all the great research she’s doing. So thank you so much.