Paul Welty, PhD AI, WORK, AND STAYING HUMAN

The Pitfalls of Over-reliance on AI

The Pitfalls of Over-reliance on AI
Discover how over-reliance on AI can hinder decision-making and diminish human skills, leading to missed opportunities and poor outcomes.

“Fabrizio Dell’Acqua shows why relying too much on AI can backfire. In an experiment, he found that recruiters who used high-quality AI became lazy, careless, and less skilled in their own judgment. They missed out on some brilliant applicants and made worse decisions than recruiters who used low-quality AI or no AI at all. When the AI is very good, humans have no reason to work hard and pay attention. They let the AI take over, instead of using it as a tool.” —Centaurs and Cyborgs on the Jagged Frontier


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

Mastering Tools like Make and Zapier

Unlock efficiency and reduce costs by mastering Make and Zapier to build tailored tech stacks and streamline your business operations.

Researchers Extend GPT-4 Prompting

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

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.