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Paul Welty, PhD AI, WORK, AND STAYING HUMAN

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Essays, notes, and experiments — mostly about work, AI, and how to be a better human in the middle of all of it.

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· business

Busy is not a state

We’ve built work cultures that reward activity, even when nothing actually changes. In technical systems, activity doesn’t count—only state change does. This essay explores why “busy” has become the most misleading signal we have, and how focusing on state instead of motion makes work more honest, less draining, and actually productive.