“Human Middleware” Isn’t the Way
AI tools are supposed to make work easier, removing menial and time-intensive tasks your team members don’t want to do. But for many businesses, expectations haven’t quite lived up to reality. Instead of eliminating this kind of work, AI simply changes it up. It’s called human middleware, and it isn’t the way forward. What is Human Middleware? Human middleware describes any business workflow where the humans in the loop have to intervene between AI systems or steps. Humans operate in the middle, hence middleware. In these situations, humans end up shuffling information from system to system or doing other similar menial tasks…so that the AI can then do its job (which was, again, to eliminate menial tasks). The Problem with Human Middleware The problem here is that if AI isn’t improving work, saving time, or otherwise benefiting your company in ways that offset the costs, then it isn’t worth those costs. This is especially concerning if the “new” work is worse, more convoluted, or othe...