Paul Welty, PhD AI, WORK, AND STAYING HUMAN

AI Slop: The Hidden Cost of Poor Integration

This article argues that “job crafting” prevents AI slop. I’d flip that completely.

Job crafting doesn’t prevent slop. Clear integration strategy does.

When you tell people to “craft their own roles around AI,” you’re admitting you haven’t done the work of understanding what AI should actually do in your organization. You’re outsourcing strategy to individual workers who lack the context, authority, or time to make those decisions well.

The result isn’t empowerment. It’s chaos with a progressive label.

AI slop comes from unclear purpose, not insufficient crafting. Fix the strategy first. Then let people adapt within that clarity.

The secret to avoiding ‘AI slop’ - let workers ‘job craft’ their own roles around AI tools, researchers say


Featured writing

Why customer tools are organized wrong

This article reveals a fundamental flaw in how customer support tools are designed—organizing by interaction type instead of by customer—and explains why this fragmentation wastes time and obscures the full picture you need to help users effectively.

Infrastructure shapes thought

The tools you build determine what kinds of thinking become possible. On infrastructure, friction, and building deliberately for thought rather than just throughput.

Server-Side Dashboard Architecture: Why Moving Data Fetching Off the Browser Changes Everything

How choosing server-side rendering solved security, CORS, and credential management problems I didn't know I had.

Books

The Work of Being (in progress)

A book on AI, judgment, and staying human at work.

The Practice of Work (in progress)

Practical essays on how work actually gets done.

Recent writing

We always panic about new tools (and we're always wrong)

Every time a new tool emerges for making or manipulating symbols, we panic. The pattern is so consistent it's almost embarrassing. Here's what happened each time.

Dev reflection - February 03, 2026

I've been thinking about constraints today. Not the kind that block you—the kind that clarify. There's a difference, and most people miss it.

When execution becomes cheap, ideas become expensive

This article reveals a fundamental shift in how organizations operate: as AI makes execution nearly instantaneous, the bottleneck has moved from implementation to decision-making. Understanding this transition is critical for anyone leading teams or making strategic choices in an AI-enabled world.

Notes and related thinking

Influence in the AI Era: Why Human Skills Still Matter

Discover why empathy and leadership are essential in the AI era, enhancing jobs and ensuring a human-centered future in a tech-driven world.

Article analysis: Wharton professor Ethan Mollick says companies must make organizational changes if they want to benefit from AI

Transform your organization to unlock AI's full potential, as Wharton professor Ethan Mollick highlights essential changes for effective implementation.

Article analysis: Unlocking autonomous agent capabilities with Microsoft Copilot Studio

Unlock the potential of autonomous agents with Microsoft Copilot Studio, enhancing efficiency and innovation for businesses in the AI-driven landscape.