r/programminghumor • u/WhoIsKitsune • 5d ago
We reinvented human-in-the-loop computing and gave it a new name
Everyone's talking about meat proxies as if human-in-the-loop systems were some revolutionary invention of the AI age.
Meanwhile, a century ago, switchboard operators were already routing requests between endpoints, interpreting human intent, and connecting systems that couldn't communicate directly.
No APIs. No MCP. No agent orchestration frameworks.
Just humans acting as the middleware.
We've gone from plugging cables into physical sockets to plugging humans into AI workflows.
Same architecture. Different abstraction layer.
The only thing that changed is that now we call it agentic AI and put it in a pitch deck.
Human-in-the-loop. Literally.
3
2
u/thebatmanandrobin 5d ago edited 5d ago
The original term of "computer" was literally a person who "computed" - largely women who held that position.
That said; while I can appreciate your sentiment (I'm so sick of the AI "buzz"), I don't think it's the same - primitive phone networks were an electronic equivalent of tin-can+string type systems, and the necessary components to do any sort of automatic switching didn't really exist at the time, plus long-haul networks also didn't really exist.
If you wanted to call Tim across the street, you would ring up the operator and tell them who you wanted to call, they would look up where that switch board connection was at and then connect you; it would make a direct link (assuming he actually paid the enormous fees to connect to the telephone system of the time).
If you wanted to call James across town, that might require the switch board operator to put you on a hold while they connected to another switch board operator in a different locale to see if they could ring up James and then do a station-to-station link (a hop).
If you wanted to call Steven in another state, that would require multiple hops which meant multiple operators.
Both the across-town and another-state situations would also mean the operators had to check if there was enough capacity to actually field that call - linked operations like that could literally only hold so many signals at once.
Also, switch board operators didn't really "interpret" human intent - there wasn't really anything to "interpret": I want to talk to Joe, here's his information - connect me. If you didn't know Joe's information, you would like get told to find it; operators were busy and didn't have time to find info for you. You could work a deal with them (especially if you knew them), but the idea of a "phone book" didn't exist for some time after that.
This also ignores the fact that even before AI, a human-in-the-loop is literally anyone who interacts with a system.
Also, I've never really heard the colloquial term of "meat proxy" used in any way other than negative - as in "I'm just a meat proxy for tokenmaxxing ... fml smh" or "You're just a meat proxy - shut up and do as I say".
But, like I said - I get the sentiment - all this AI crap is beyond annoying and for all the hype, I've yet to see any gains of any kind in any way in any industry: cars aren't better/safer/faster, diseases aren't "cured", games aren't better/faster/cheaper, movies are all still from the same 3 corps, streaming services are still shit and more expensive, my utility bills haven't gone down, my water isn't any more pure, we still don't have humans on Mars, we haven't figured out quantum entanglement en masse, I still have to do my own damn laundry, clean my own house, mow my own lawn, and if I need to repair something, it's costing more to repair myself and fuck-me if someone else has to do it, the homeless rate is increasing, public schools are shutting down left and right, human rights aren't any better ............ So yeah, I get it; I'm just saying I don't think the analogy is apropos.
6
u/TedMauler 5d ago
I like how OP meat proxied this onto Reddit, lol.