Human-in-the-loop
HITL and the Cost of Saying Maybe: Why Escalation Is the Most Underrated Decision in Human Oversight
HITL and the Cost of Saying Maybe: Why Escalation Is the Most Underrated Decision in Human Oversight
Most HITL designs treat escalation as a fallback — what happens when the reviewer doesn't know. But escalation is a first-class decision with its own costs, its own value, and its own failure modes. A reviewer who escalates appropriately is doing the most underrated work in HITL. Here's why "I don't know, escalate" is the third decision that deserves the same support as approve and reject.