Is anyone else tired of human in the loop?
22 Sep 2026
Something that has been bothering me for a while.
When people talk about AI, new tools, and new ways, the concept of 'human in the loop' normally gets thrown in as a check box item. As a way of saying that the necessary quality checks have been done.
But we all know (surely?) that it is not enough. Having a human in the loop is the bare minimum effort. Plus when we're all increasingly cognitively overloaded, missing and simply not reading things is a problem and a risk. I love the new term AI:DR, that has popped up recently as a result.
Maybe we can rethink the words we use, personally I do my best to use the term Quality in the Loop, as a way of more intentionally thinking about quality practices over a human checker (who probably doesn't know much about testing, quality or the actual risks).
When people talk about AI, new tools, and new ways, the concept of 'human in the loop' normally gets thrown in as a check box item. As a way of saying that the necessary quality checks have been done.
But we all know (surely?) that it is not enough. Having a human in the loop is the bare minimum effort. Plus when we're all increasingly cognitively overloaded, missing and simply not reading things is a problem and a risk. I love the new term AI:DR, that has popped up recently as a result.
Maybe we can rethink the words we use, personally I do my best to use the term Quality in the Loop, as a way of more intentionally thinking about quality practices over a human checker (who probably doesn't know much about testing, quality or the actual risks).
Rosie Sherry
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Kyle Parris
One of the biggest issues with AI is the slop that it tends to produce as "Documentation" once you have read one you end up having read them all with "varying" degrees of nuance. So we have ended up asking AI to produce succinct and plain english documentation...ya know if you can explain it simply then you understand what you are talking about 🤣
Simon Tomes
Some related terms that have become popular: Orchestrator, Evaluator and Judge.
When humans orchestrate they have control and responsibility.
When humans evaluate they have criteria and context.
When humans judge they have authority and accountability.
Maybe there's something in making these role types specific. One person or a group of people could be all three of course. Yet perhaps that's what human in the loop is trying to infer instead of a check box exercise. Like any new term, it's all open to interpretation and a multitude of usage.
I'm with ya, 'human in the loop' feels like it's becoming a catch all to say "Don't hand it all to those AI agents, make sure to check in at some point in your workflow to see how they are getting on with the extremely important and risky work you've handed off to them... looks good to me!" 🫠
Justin Holsgrove
It's a good observation and one I hadn't really considered much. I still baulk at the term "hallucination" which rather obfuscates the fact the output is inaccurate at best and just plain wrong at worst.
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