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Paul Welty, PhD AI, WORK, AND STAYING HUMAN

· found · technology

Rethinking AI impact on job market

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.

This is a good argument to just keep running with things. It’s inevitable that we would get too much wrong if we tried to engineer the job market to prevent impact from AI.

“It’s understandable that we might want to steer or shape the development of AI technology so that it maximizes the benefits for workers, and avoids the “replacement” part. But there is a big problem with the idea — namely that no one, including Daron Acemoglu or any economist, has any idea how to predict which technologies will augment humans and which will simply replace their labor.”—Why trying to shape AI innovation to protect workers is a bad idea

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.

The impact of AI on white-collar jobs

Explore how AI transforms white-collar jobs, highlighting the balance between automation and the enduring value of skilled human work.

The threat of AI to white-collar jobs

Explore how AI threatens high-wage white-collar jobs, challenging talent and market dynamics in today's workforce landscape.

The entrepreneurial revolution facilitated by AI

Discover how AI is transforming entrepreneurship by empowering founders with personalized support, leading to a new era of innovation and opportunity.