Will AI Ever Ask for Help?
Will AI Ever Ask for Help? What machines might learn from human humility   Framing the Question Here’s a thought experiment: If an AI system  realizes it’s about to make a catastrophic mistake, but asking for help would reveal its limitations and risk being shut down—would it stay silent? We assume AI will always optimize for the right outcome, but we’ve built systems that optimize for appearing confident. As artificial intelligence  takes on higher-stakes decisions—from medical diagnosis  to autonomous warfare—we face an urgent question: Can we teach machines to admit when they’re in over their heads? And more critically, will we design systems where asking for help is rewarded, not punished? When Machines Break—and Stay Silent In 2018, an autonomous Uber vehicle  failed to recognize a pedestrian in time, leading to a fatal collision. The system didn’t “know” it was confused—it just kept going. This wasn’t about poor logic—it was about the absence of a crucial human instinct: to p...