The term "human in the loop" is widely used to indicate human participation in AI decisions across corporate, strategic, and compliance contexts. On September 26, 1983, Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov monitored early-warning satellites and received alarms indicating five incoming US missiles, 28 minutes from impact. Petrov relied on intuition and broke protocol by reporting a false alarm; ground radar later confirmed no missiles. Human intuition, contextual knowledge, and the authority to override automated signals can be decisive in preventing catastrophic outcomes, showing that simple human presence in workflows is insufficient for safety.
I hear and this phrase dozens of times per week. In LinkedIn posts. In board meetings about AI strategy. In product requirements. In compliance documents that tick the "responsible AI" box. It's become the go-to phrase for any situation where humans interact with AI decisions. But there's a story I think of when I hear "human in the loop" which makes me think we're grossly over-simplifying things. It's a story about the man who saved the world.
12:15 AM... the unthinkable. Every alarm in the facility started screaming. The screens showed five US ballistic missiles, 28 minutes from impact. Confidence level: 100%. Petrov had minutes to decide whether to trigger a chain reaction that would start nuclear war and could very well end civilisation as we knew it. He was the "human in the loop" in the most literal, terrifying sense.
Everything told him to follow protocol. His training. His commanders. The computers. But something felt wrong. His intuition, built from years of intelligence work, whispered that this didn't match what he knew about US strategic thinking. Against every protocol, against the screaming certainty of technology, he pressed the button marked "false alarm". Twenty-three minutes of gripping fear passed before ground radar confirmed: no missiles. The system had mistaken a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds for incoming warheads.
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