Human-in-the-Loop or Human-on-the-Loop? Most Teams Are Using the Wrong Model

On April 16, 2026, MIT Technology Review published a piece arguing that "humans in the loop" oversight has become an illusion. Its focus was military autonomous systems, and its argument was precise: human overseers cannot verify what the AI is actually reasoning about internally. Investment in understanding AI decision-making has been minuscule compared to investment in building more capable models, leaving operators nominally in control of systems they cannot meaningfully audit. The article fo