Human oversight of agentic systems in practice: Examining the oversight work, challenges, and heuristics of developers using software agents
arXiv:2606.05391v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Autonomous software agents hold promise to increase developer productivity but make mistakes and exhibit novel failure modes, making human oversight central to successful human-agent collaboration. Existing research on agent oversight is largely conceptual; normative frameworks exist, but how users actually oversee agents is less known. In this paper, we bridge this gap by providing early empirical anchors for the theoretical discourse on agent oversight. Drawing on interviews with 17 experienced developers, we conduct an exploratory inquiry ex
The proliferation of software agents necessitates immediate understanding of human oversight, as current research is largely conceptual.
This empirical study provides concrete insights into the practical challenges and heuristics developers use to oversee AI agents, moving beyond theoretical frameworks.
Understanding of how humans actually interact with and manage autonomous agents shifts from conceptual models to empirically informed practices, highlighting real-world issues.
- · AI developers
- · Software engineering teams
- · Agentic system deployers
- · Companies with poor oversight strategies
- · Theoretical AI ethicists without practical experience
Improved design of human-agent collaboration interfaces based on empirical findings.
Development of new training programs for developers focused on practical agent oversight skills.
Enhanced trust and adoption of agentic systems in critical industrial applications due to better oversight mechanisms.
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Read at arXiv cs.AI