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Paul Welty, PhD AI, WORK, AND STAYING HUMAN

· found · technology

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

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.

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.