Ethical Guidelines and Human Oversight › Glossary

Audit Log: A record of all actions an agent has taken, including timestamps, action types, and outcomes, used for reviewing agent behavior after the fact.

Bias: Systematic unfair treatment or assumptions based on demographic characteristics like race, gender, or ethnicity, which AI agents can inadvertently perpetuate if not carefully designed.

Ethical Guidelines: Principles and rules that govern an agent's behavior beyond basic safety, addressing questions of fairness, autonomy, transparency, and impact on others.

Governance: The policies, processes, and human oversight that ensure an agent behaves ethically and remains aligned with human values over time.

Human-in-the-Loop (HITL): An oversight approach where a human must review and approve each action before the agent executes it, used for high-stakes decisions.

Human-on-the-Loop (HOTL): An oversight approach where the agent acts autonomously but a human monitors its actions and can intervene if needed, used for medium-risk situations.

Human-out-of-the-Loop (HOOTL): An oversight approach where the agent acts fully autonomously with all actions logged for later audit, used for low-risk routine tasks.

Oversight Level: The degree of human involvement required for an agent's actions, ranging from requiring approval for each action to simply logging actions for later review.