Leigh’s Leadership Lessons: Humans ARE the Loop - Our Role in the Age of AI

AI agents going rogue. Systems behaving deceptively. Technology advancing faster than most of us can fully understand. It’s easy to feel as though AI is an unstoppable force and the rest of us are simply along for the ride. In this episode, Leigh challenges that passive stance with a simple but powerful shift: we don’t just need humans in the loop. Humans ARE the loop.

If you’ve never heard the tech phrase “human in the loop,” the idea is reassuringly simple: let the AI do the work, but keep a person nearby to supervise, review, and step in if something goes wrong. But what if that framing already gives too much power to the technology? Leigh makes the case for putting humans back at the center—and offers three ways each of us can do it: pause before outsourcing our judgment, be intentional about what we create and share, and exercise our civic and consumer voice. Because navigating the AI era isn’t about choosing between optimism and fear. It’s about staying in the driver’s seat. As AI grows more capable, so too must our accountability for how it is used and what it creates.

The familiar idea of keeping a “human in the loop” sounds reassuring: let automated systems do the work while a person supervises, reviews, and steps in when necessary. But Leigh argues that this framing subtly puts technology at the center and relegates human beings to the role of monitor—or emergency brake. Humans ARE the Loop offers a more assertive frame. AI is a tool created to serve human purposes. Humans remain responsible for deciding what we build, how we use it, what risks we accept, and what kind of future we want these technologies to help create.

That responsibility matters precisely because humans are imperfect. We can be biased, careless, rushed, and wrong. Asserting "humans ARE the loop" brings these risks; it would be naive to think otherwise. Leigh is wide-eyed about this reality, choosing still to center humanness amidst dizzying technological advancement.

The reason: algorithms cannot carry moral responsibility, repair broken trust, feel remorse, or answer to a community when something goes wrong. Accountability ultimately belongs on human shoulders.

Three Practices for Staying in the Driver’s Seat

1. Pause before you outsource. Before accepting an AI-generated answer, recommendation, or piece of content, ask: What am I asking this tool to do? What judgment must remain mine? Who is affected if the output is wrong? Use AI to extend your thinking—not replace you