About this Research Topic
Healthcare providers, governmental agencies, educational institutions, and financial and commercial businesses increasingly rely on automated decision-making systems. Inserting human beings into the “loop” of these automated systems is frequently presented as a crucial means of achieving accountability and oversight. But humans in the loop also present a host of challenges. What decision options are provided to the human participants? What data is made available to inform their decisions? Is the time human participants have to make their decisions sufficient? What level of oversight, accountability and liability are attached to human-made decisions? This Research Topic provides an open space to explore the socio-legal and socio-technical challenges associated with humans in the loop, and the opportunities to meet these challenges by the design and governance of automated decision-making systems.
We believe it is necessary to take a multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary perspective on humans in the loop, considering insights from social and political science, computer science, law, design and other relevant disciplines to fully understand the challenges around meaningful human control. We would encourage all of the contributors to this Research Topic to consider at least two disciplinary perspectives when they submit and article and, if possible, to go beyond these existing disciplinary perspectives in their submissions.
We hope to open a space for a vibrant collection of diverse disciplinary and geographic perspective, rethinking what it means to put human beings in the loop and challenging key assumptions about human and loops, ideally using empirical data.
Contributions could include but are not limited to:
- Research and perspective on the interaction between socio-technical affordances and socio-legal limitations on humans in the loop and their decision-making.
- Research and perspectives on humans in the loop in high-risk environments (such as healthcare, national security and intelligence, public services, elections, humanitarian aid, and development).
- Research and perspectives on the design of interfaces and interactions of human in the loop systems.
- Research and perspectives on the regulatory and ethical frameworks that can contribute to improving transparency, accountability, and oversight of humans in the loop and their decision-making.
- Empirical legal work which looks at the socio-legal consequences of inserting human beings in the loop.
- Research that rigorously challenge any of the assumptions made in this call for papers.
We believe it is necessary to take a multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary perspective on humans in the loop, considering insights from social and political science, computer science, law, design and other relevant disciplines to fully understand the challenges around meaningful human control. We would encourage all of the contributors to this Research Topic to consider at least two disciplinary perspectives when they submit and article and, if possible, to go beyond these existing disciplinary perspectives in their submissions.
We hope to open a space for a vibrant collection of diverse disciplinary and geographic perspective, rethinking what it means to put human beings in the loop and challenging key assumptions about human and loops, ideally using empirical data.
Contributions could include but are not limited to:
- Research and perspective on the interaction between socio-technical affordances and socio-legal limitations on humans in the loop and their decision-making.
- Research and perspectives on humans in the loop in high-risk environments (such as healthcare, national security and intelligence, public services, elections, humanitarian aid, and development).
- Research and perspectives on the design of interfaces and interactions of human in the loop systems.
- Research and perspectives on the regulatory and ethical frameworks that can contribute to improving transparency, accountability, and oversight of humans in the loop and their decision-making.
- Empirical legal work which looks at the socio-legal consequences of inserting human beings in the loop.
- Research that rigorously challenge any of the assumptions made in this call for papers.
Keywords: human in the loop, human oversight, accountability, oversight, technology governance, technology policy, meaningful human control, socio-technical systems, socio-legal systems, law and society, automation
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
