Keeping the organization in the loop: a socio-technical extension of human-centered artificial intelligence

The human-centered AI approach posits a future in which the work done by humans and machines will become ever more interactive and integrated. This article takes human-centered AI one step further. It argues that the integration of human and machine intelligence is achievable only if human organizations—not just individual human workers—are kept “in the loop.” We support this argument with evidence of two case studies in the area of predictive maintenance, by which we show how organizational practices are needed and shape the use of AI/ML. Specifically, organizational processes and outputs such as decision-making workflows, etc. directly influence how AI/ML affects the workplace, and they are crucial for answering our first and second research questions, which address the pre-conditions for keeping humans in the loop and for supporting continuous and reliable functioning of AI-based socio-technical processes. From the empirical cases, we extrapolate a concept of “keeping the organization in the loop” that integrates four different kinds of loops: AI use, AI customization, AI-supported original tasks, and taking contextual changes into account. The analysis culminates in a systematic framework of keeping the organization in the loop look based on interacting organizational practices.