Paul Welty, PhD AI, WORK, AND STAYING HUMAN

Is Automation the Key to Organizational Resilience?

Automation as the backbone of resilience? This article argues it’s essential, but let’s not forget the human element. While automating routine tasks can indeed free up resources, it’s the strategic deployment of human creativity that drives true innovation. Think of automation as the scaffolding, not the structure. The author claims automation transforms efficiency, yet the real transformation happens when we align technology with human insight. So, are we building resilience or just a faster treadmill? Let’s ensure our focus remains on enriching human potential, not just replacing it.

The new resilience: automating to innovate


Featured writing

When your brilliant idea meets organizational reality: a survival guide

Transform your brilliant tech ideas into reality by navigating organizational challenges and overcoming hidden resistance with this essential survival guide.

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.

AI as Coach: Transforming Professional and Continuing Education

Transform professional and continuing education with AI-driven coaching, offering personalized support, accountability, and skill mastery at scale.

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

When teaching stops being bounded

AI removes the constraints that gave teaching its shape—one teacher, thirty students, limited time. But lifting constraints doesn't make the work easier. It makes it different. Teachers trained for a bounded classroom now face an unbounded role that requires judgment, discernment, and presence in ways we haven't yet mapped.

Why your job matters more than mine: the selective morality of job loss

This article reveals the uncomfortable pattern behind which jobs get moral protection and which get called 'market forces'—and what that means for everyone outside the creative class.

AI in writing: the end of a professional monopoly

This article reframes the AI writing debate: the panic isn't about creativity—it's about a professional class losing control of the systems they've gatekept for a century.

Notes and related thinking

AI didn't deskill us, we were already deskilled

This article challenges the narrative that AI is deskilling workers, instead highlighting how many jobs were already mechanical. It offers a thought-provoking perspective on how AI could be an opportunity to reclaim and enhance human skills.

Reaction: Boredom is the new burnout, and it's quietly killing motivation at work

This article offers a fresh perspective on workplace dynamics, highlighting how boredom, often overlooked, can be as detrimental as burnout, and provides insights on redesigning work to enhance motivation and engagement.

Bookmark: Workers who use AI are more productive at work—but less happy, research finds

AI boosts workplace productivity but may diminish creativity and job satisfaction. Explore the paradox of efficiency versus fulfillment in this insightful...