Flipping the Delegation Script: AI-Led Conditional Human Oversight in High-Throughput Decision Environments

Most studies (e.g., Lai et al., 2022; Spitzer et al., 2024) examine human-led delegation—humans decide when to involve AI. However, as AI systems mature, especially in high-volume, low-stakes settings (e.g., content moderation, routine diagnostics), it's increasingly feasible and efficient for AI to "call for human backup" only when it detects uncertainty or novelty. Inspired by the SOC frameworks (Yaich et al., 2025; Mohsin et al., 2025) and Billi & Labraña (2025) on AI as functional expertise, this research would empirically test how such AI-initiated delegation affects not only error rates and throughput, but also human skill retention, trust, and perceptions of agency. It would challenge the assumption that humans must always initiate oversight, proposing new models of "conditional escalation" where human effort is focused where it matters most.

References:

1. Human-AI Collaboration via Conditional Delegation: A Case Study of Content Moderation. Vivian Lai, Samuel Carton, Rajat Bhatnagar, Vera Liao, Yunfeng Zhang, Chenhao Tan, Q. Liao (2022). International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
2. Human Delegation Behavior in Human-AI Collaboration: The Effect of Contextual Information. Philipp Spitzer, Joshua Holstein, Patrick Hemmer, Michael Vossing, Niklas Kuhl, Dominik Martin, G. Satzger (2024). Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact..
3. Symbiotic Human–AI Collaboration for Augmented Cybersecurity Operations. Reda Yaich, Alexandre Balondrade, Antoine Sicard, Christelle Fouquiau, Guillaume Giraud, Kahina Amokrane-Ferka, Emmanuel Arbaretier (2025). Proceedings of the AAAI Symposium Series.
4. A Unified Framework for Human AI Collaboration in Security Operations Centers with Trusted Autonomy. Ahmad Mohsin, Helge Janicke, Ahmed Ibrahim, Iqbal H. Sarker, S. Çamtepe (2025). arXiv.org.
5. Is AI a functional equivalent to expertise in organizations and decision-making? Opportunities and pitfalls for AI in the context of just transitions. Marco Billi, Julio Labraña (2025). Frontiers Artif. Intell..