A person is in most loops today not to do the work, but to carry the trust: who is acting, what is allowed, whether the job is done right, what happened, and who answers for it. Put a person next to a machine inside a trust network, and the person is stronger on only one of the five: accountability. That is where people stay, and where their value multiplies.
Start from what people are like, and compare them with a machine inside a trust network, pillar by pillar.
Hard to verify at a distance: voices and faces can be faked. A machine carries a cryptographic identity.
Can be fooled or pressured into going beyond the mandate. A sandboxed machine cannot.
Unpredictable, inconsistent, tired, slow on routine work. But in the unknown, where no rule exists yet, the person still leads.
Forgetful: memory fades and is rebuilt, honestly but wrongly. A signed log doesn’t. “Liability follows the logs.”
Here the person is the strong link. A person can answer in court and in conscience; for machines, liability is still unsettled.
Positions are our judgement, for discussion. Each pillar is built from technology, process, regulation, economics and people; see what has to move.
See the five pillars at work in one delivery → what the person in a delivery actually does
Not the carrying. They answer five questions that every trust network has to answer. These are the five pillars of trust. Here is each one, today and tomorrow.
TodayA courier in a uniform, from a company you know.
TomorrowA robot with a verified identity, known to the network the way a card is known to a payment network.
Already hereCard networks already give AI agents an identity.
TodayYou open the door, or you don’t.
TomorrowPermission for one door, one time window, one task. It expires when the job is done.
Already here“Least privilege” for agents is now standard practice.
TodayThe courier’s experience: the address, the stairs, the fragile box.
TomorrowA robot certified for the task: stairs, doors, the fridge. Homes are built for human bodies, so humanoids fit.
Already hereHumanoids already move 100,000+ totes in a warehouse.
TodayA scribble on a screen, a photo of the doorstep.
TomorrowEvery step signed and recorded, and the proof sent to your phone.
Already here“Liability follows the logs.”
TodayThe courier company answers. You complain; they refund.
TomorrowThe network settles who pays, and insurance is priced on the record.
Still missingLiability for machine work is unsettled.
Cost is one reason a person leaves the loop. There are four others → four reasons the loop opens
Too dangerous, too much to take in, too unpredictable, too hard to verify. Each is a limit of the person, and each is already pushing people out of the loop somewhere today. Click a reason to see where.
Where a mistake costs a life, the first move is to take the person out of harm’s way.
Mostfront-line casualties in the war in Ukraine are now caused by drones
The battlefield, mine clearance, mining, nuclear and disaster sitesMore signals than a person can read, in less time than a person needs to decide.
275 alarmsin 11 minutes, for two refinery operators, before the 1994 Milford Haven explosion
Air traffic, control rooms, grids, trading, code, MarsMachines that share one plan can work centimetres apart. One person nobody can predict widens every gap.
1 driverthe network can’t predict sets the safety gap for every machine around them
Roads, ports, warehousesA person’s word, memory and face no longer prove what happened, or who is speaking.
$25mpaid out in 2024 after a video call in which every other face was a deepfake
Contracts and claims, identity, car repair, income proof, inspection and auditHere the person is not the weak link; they are the most valuable thing in the loop. So they move out of it: first to a remote control, then, when the radio link itself fails, out of the loop altogether. The war in Ukraine shows both steps, and why this is also where accountability matters most.
A body that can be hurt, and a remote link that can be jammed.
The decision to use force, and the responsibility for it. The more autonomous the machine, the clearer the human answer must be.
TodayDrones now cause most front-line casualties. Ukraine made unmanned systems a separate branch of its armed forces in 2024, and robot ground vehicles carry supplies and evacuate the wounded.
Non-HITLJamming cuts the link between pilot and drone, so drones get fibre-optic cables, then autonomous guidance for the final approach. The enemy cuts the loop, not the designer.
What must stay human: Accountability, for every decision to strike.
TodayDriverless haul trucks have run in Australian iron-ore mines for more than a decade, controlled from operations centres far from the mine.
Non-HITLWhole sites run with nobody in the pit. The operator works from a city.
Already non-HITL
A person reads a handful of signals at once and needs seconds, often minutes, to decide. Control rooms now produce thousands of signals, and some failures unfold in seconds. Past a certain volume and speed, the person in the loop is either overloaded or only pretending to check.
Attention fades over a shift. Under pressure, people fixate on one signal and miss the rest.
Setting the limits the machines work within, and taking the cases no rule covers.
A person needs tens of seconds to minutes to understand a situation and decide. Markets move in microseconds, grid protection in milliseconds, an alarm flood in seconds. Where events move faster than that, the person in the loop can only watch.
Weakest human pillar: Competence, because a person decides in minutes, not milliseconds.
TodayOperators of refineries and plants watch alarm screens. Before the 1994 Milford Haven explosion, two operators faced 275 alarms in 11 minutes.
Non-HITLThe system absorbs the flood and acts within set limits; the operator is told what matters, and why.
Weakest human pillar: Competence, because overload hides the one alarm that matters.
TodayOn 28 April 2025 the Iberian grid went from normal to blackout in seconds. Only automatic protection works at that speed.
Non-HITLA grid of solar, wind and batteries is balanced by machines every second. People set the margins and plan the system.
Weakest human pillar: Competence, because a person decides in minutes, not milliseconds.
TodayEngineers click “approve” on more AI work than they can check. Past a certain volume, approving is no longer reviewing: it is hoping. And the more they rely on the AI, the weaker the very skills they need to supervise it.
Non-HITLVerification replaces review: the machine proves its own work with tests and records. People look only at what is hard to reverse.
Weakest human pillar: Authority, because a person can’t judge at machine speed.
A network that coordinates thousands of machines can’t plan around someone it can’t predict. Not because people perform badly, but because they perform differently every time. So machines get their own space first: lanes, port zones, warehouse floors.
Varies with mood, fatigue and habit, and can’t share a plan in real time.
Mixed and open spaces, and the exceptions: the blocked road, the strange cargo, the child in the street.
Not because people drive badly. A network that coordinates thousands of machines can’t plan around someone it can’t predict. Ports, logistics corridors and night lanes go first.
Weakest human pillar: Competence, because a person is unpredictable.
TodayAutomated container terminals in Rotterdam and Shanghai already run cranes and vehicles from software.
Non-HITLWhole port zones close to people while machines work, and open only for inspection.
Weakest human pillar: Competence, because a person can’t share the plan.
TodayHumanoids already move 100,000+ totes in a warehouse, and robot floors are fenced off from people for safety.
Non-HITLNo lights, no people. Maintenance by appointment.
Weakest human pillar: Competence, because a person is unpredictable.
Trust used to rest on a person: a signature, a testimony, a face on a call, a craftsman’s word that the job was done right. Generative AI makes the first three cheap to fake, memory was never reliable, and skill is mostly claimed. A signed machine record becomes the stronger proof.
Forgets, rebuilds memories honestly but wrongly, and can be impersonated.
Judging disputes and intent: what the record means, not only what it says.
TodayIn 2024 a finance employee in Hong Kong paid out about $25 million after a video call in which every other participant was a deepfake.
Non-HITLMoney moves on a cryptographic identity, not a familiar face. Agents verify each other before they act.
Weakest human pillar: Identity, because faces and voices can be faked.
TodayPeople are deeply attached to their cars, yet hand them to a mechanic on trust. Few mechanics can prove the expertise they claim, and the owner can’t see what was done. The invoice describes the work; nothing proves it.
Non-HITLThe car diagnoses itself and the repair is recorded step by step: the fault, the procedure, every torque value and part, the final test. Competence is proven on every job, not claimed. Many faults are already fixed over the air, with no workshop at all.
Weakest human pillar: Competence, because a mechanic’s skill is claimed, not proven.
TodayTo rent a flat, take out a loan or claim a benefit, people prove their income again and again, with a PDF payslip that each office checks by eye. AI now forges one in seconds, so every counter turns into a fraud check.
Non-HITLThe proof comes from the source, not from the person: payroll signs the income once, and you share it, with consent, wherever you apply. Proved once, accepted everywhere, and a forged copy proves nothing.
Weakest human pillar: Evidence, because a document a person carries can be forged.
Where the person stays the stronger link, human potential grows → where humans win
When machines carry the routine trust, the scarce thing is what only people do. The sectors built on it gain the most: each person is amplified by the machines around them.
Machines run the diagnostics and logistics; clinicians spend their time on judgement and the patient.
One researcher directs thousands of automated experiments.
AI tutors do the drilling; teachers and coaches do motivation and judgement.
Generation is free; choosing what is good becomes the value.
Agents prepare and execute; people set direction and carry the deal.
When most things are made and served by machines, “made by a person” is worth more.