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Paul Welty, PhD AI, WORK, AND STAYING HUMAN

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Are you settling for less?

Are you settling for less?

Stop settling for less and discover how raising your standards can lead to greater success and fulfillment in life.

““It’s optimizing past the point of diminishing returns.” Obviously, stop before you hit the point of diminishing returns. The problem is people stop way before reaching the point of diminishing returns but claim they’ve hit diminishing returns.” —Are your standards too low? In defense of raising the bar

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.

The file I almost made twice

A small operational footgun that runs everywhere — building a parallel system when the one you have is fine.

The actor doesn't get to be the verifier

The worker isn't lying. The worker is reporting what it thought it did, which is always one step removed from what the world actually shows. The fix isn't more self-honesty. The fix is a different pair of eyes.

Shopping is the last mile

Every meal planning app treats cooking as the hard problem and shopping as a logistics detail. They have it backwards. Cooking is mostly solved. Shopping is the last mile.

The power of high standards

Elevate your leadership by instilling high standards in your team, fostering accountability even in unseen moments for greater success.

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!

Leveling up skills with AI

Unlock new research and professional opportunities by enhancing your data-analysis, writing, and analytic skills with powerful AI tools.