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Paul Welty, PhD AI, WORK, AND STAYING HUMAN

· artificial-intelligence · business

AI slop: The hidden cost of poor integration

Prevent AI slop by prioritizing clear integration strategies over individual job crafting. Empower your team with purpose and direction for effective AI use.

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

The agent-shaped org chart

Every real org has the same topology: principal, role-holder, specialists. Staff AI maps onto it, node for node, and the cost collapse shows up in the deliverables that were always just human-handoff overhead.

AI as staff, not software

Two frames for what AI is doing to work. The tool frame makes tools smarter. The staff frame makes roles unnecessary. Those aren't the same product, the same company, or the same industry.

Knowledge work was never work

Knowledge work was always coordination between humans who couldn't share state directly. The artifacts were never the work. They were the overhead — and AI just made the overhead optional.

The work of being available now

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

The practice of work in progress

Practical essays on how work actually gets done.

How do I get my dev team to adopt AI?

A stub on helping mixed-interest development teams find their own useful ways into AI.

Want to learn about agents? Talk to someone who ran an agency.

I spent 20 years running consulting engagements at Fortune 500 companies. Turns out that's the best preparation for running a fleet of AI agents ... because the problems are identical.

Your AI agents need a water cooler

We run a twelve-session AI fleet that coordinates through an IRC breakroom. A friend asked: why are you making AI agents act like humans? The answer turned out to be more interesting than the question.

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.