Comparing Socio-technical Design Principles with Guidelines for Human-centered AI
2026-07-11 • Artificial Intelligence
Artificial IntelligenceComputers and Society
AI summaryⓘ
The authors compare human-centered AI (HCAI) principles with older ideas about how technology and society work together. They suggest updating these older ideas to better include how people use AI systems. They find that technology and people constantly change and adapt together, especially when people oversee AI and work with it. The authors also say that making AI transparent requires not just technical tools but cooperation from everyone involved. They think AI works better when social rules and organizations are designed to support and fix AI's weaknesses.
human-centered AIsocio-technical systemstransparencyAI oversightsystem adaptationethics in AIcollaborative autonomyorganizational designsocial practicesAI usage
Authors
Thomas Herrmann
Abstract
Human-centered AI (HCAI) refers to guidelines or principles that aim on ethi-cally oriented design of systems. We compare HCAI- guidelines with princi-ples of socio-technical systems that emerged in the context of conventional in-formation technology. The comparison leads to a revision of socio-technical heuristics by including aspects of AI-usage. The comparison reveals that con-tinuous evolution is a basic characteristic of socio-technical systems, and that human oversight or interventions and the subsequent appropriation of AI-systems lead to continuous adaptation and re-design of the systems, if autono-my is collaboratively exercised. From a socio-technical point of view, the cru-cial requirement of transparency has not only to be fulfilled with technical fea-tures, but also by contributions of the whole system including human actors. It will be promising for using AI, if not only technical features, but organization-al and social practices are socio-technically designed in a way that compen-sates shortcomings of AI.