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Paul Welty, PhD AI, WORK, AND STAYING HUMAN

Blog

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.





· artificial-intelligence · business

AI didn’t deskill us, we were already deskilled

This article gets it half right. AI isn’t deskilling workers. It’s revealing how many of us were already deskilled—trained to follow scripts, fill templates, and optimize compliance instead of thinking. The real threat isn’t the tool. It’s that we built work systems that never required judgment in the first place. We turned people into process executors, then act surprised when a machine does it better. If your job can be automated by today’s AI, the problem isn’t the technology. It’s that the work was already mechanical. We just called it a career. The question isn’t whether AI deskills us. It’s whether we’ll use this moment to reclaim the capacities we let atrophy.


· business · education

Gen z’s job-hopping: Smart strategy for growth

Gen Z’s job-hopping isn’t reckless. It’s a calculated strategy. This article argues they’re not being disloyal but rational, and I concur. In a world where skills quickly become obsolete, Gen Z’s relentless pursuit of growth and development is not only wise but necessary. Their willingness to switch roles for better learning opportunities highlights a shift from static loyalty to dynamic career building. As employers, we must ask: Are we offering environments that nurture continuous growth? If not, we’re missing the point. It’s time to adapt and invest in the human potential that defines this generation.