Paul Welty, PhD AI, WORK, AND STAYING HUMAN

Job displacement by AI

Job displacement by AI
Explore the impact of AI on job displacement, highlighting real stories of workers replaced by technology and the future of employment.

There’s never a news story when a copywriter is replaced by a human copywriter.

“The Washington Post reported this week on two copywriters who lost their livelihoods because employers (or clients) decided that ChatGPT could perform the job at a cheaper price.”—AI eliminated nearly 4,000 jobs in May, report says


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

Rethinking AI Impact on Job Market

Explore how AI's unpredictable evolution shapes the job market, challenging the notion of steering technology for worker protection.

The Power of Executive Assistants

Unlock the potential of executive assistants to enhance school leadership effectiveness and drive impactful meetings forward.

Researchers Extend GPT-4 Prompting

Discover how researchers enhance GPT-4's capabilities with innovative prompting techniques, boosting productivity and unlocking new AI potential.