Viewpoint: Human-in-the-loop Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Little by little, newspapers are revealing the bright future that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is building. Intelligent machines will help everywhere. However, this bright future may have a possible dark side: a dramatic job market contraction before its unpredictable transformation. Hence, in a near future, large numbers of job seekers may need financial support while catching up with these novel unpredictable jobs. This possible job market crisis has an antidote inside. In fact, the rise of AI is sustained by the biggest knowledge theft of the recent years. Many learning AI machines are extracting knowledge from unaware skilled or unskilled workers by analyzing their interactions. By passionately doing their jobs, many of these workers are shooting themselves in the feet.

In this paper, we propose Human-in-the-loop Artificial Intelligence (HitAI) as a fairer paradigm for AI systems. Recognizing that any AI system has humans in the loop, HitAI will reward these aware and unaware knowledge producers with a different scheme: decisions of AI systems generating revenues will repay the legitimate owners of the knowledge used for taking those decisions. As modern Merry Men, HitAI researchers should fight for a fairer Robin Hood Artificial Intelligence that gives back what it steals.

This article is part of the special track on AI and Society.