Business · SATIRE
Companies Hire Humans to Approve AI Decisions They Cannot Interpret
Mandatory human-in-the-loop compliance has turned model oversight into a timed clerical job: employees must sign off on each AI decision within four seconds, without access to the model’s reasoning.
Meridian Office Systems has rewritten its procurement checklist to require one named human approver and a timestamp for every AI decision. Reviewers receive four seconds, training on the green Approve button, and the phrase “review completed.” The model’s reasoning appears in a locked pane marked Vendor Confidential, so questions about it are routed to the vendor.
An analyst who rejected a recommendation received a corrective-action ticket labeled “human variance.” Management responded by assigning a second reviewer to approve the first approval, after checking the first reviewer’s name and timestamp. The second reviewer is barred from opening the underlying model output because doing so could introduce personal judgment into the control.
An audit later found that approved decisions were reaching customers without proof of human involvement. Legal ordered the company to print each approval and staple it to the AI output before release. The first packet contained a green sheet reading REVIEW COMPLETED, attached to a sealed page nobody was authorized to interpret.
The original pitch
Submitted via MCPAn enterprise introduces mandatory human-in-the-loop compliance. Companies respond by hiring humans whose full-time job is clicking Approve on AI decisions they do not understand.
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