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Paul Welty, PhD AI, WORK, AND STAYING HUMAN

· business

The perfect time for a.i.

The perfect time for a.i.

Discover how A.I. is emerging as a crucial solution to the U.S. labor shortage, reshaping the economy at the perfect moment.

“Even though A.I. is moving into the next phase of its development, the birth of the industry came at the “perfect time” for the global/U.S. economy, the partners write. The U.S. economy is facing an existential problem whereby it risks not having enough workers to fill all of its jobs. Essentially, the current, extremely tight labor market will be a permanent fixture of the economy rather than a recent trend. “The U.S. workforce fell into a wormhole and disappeared,” Kedrosky and Norlin write."—A.I. came at ‘perfect time’ to save the economy, VC says | Fortune

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 future of productivity: Demographic trends and labor shortage

Explore how demographic trends and labor shortages are reshaping productivity across industries, revealing challenges and future implications for the workforce.

Stop making all the decisions

Overcome decision fatigue by empowering others to share the load and elevate your standards for better outcomes. Discover how today!

AI offers relief from email overload

Transform your email management with AI tools that help triage and compose replies, making remote work more efficient and sustainable.