Artificial Intelligence or Augmented Intelligence: A Case Study of Human-AI Collaboration in Operational Decision Making

Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) in operational decision-making process has been a pervasive trend among many organizations. However, the current AI-based decision support systems still face challenges on accuracy and efficiency of operational decision making due to a lack of human-AI collaboration. To provide a proactive and pragmatic view of humans’ and AI’s roles, this study constructs a multi-dimensional analytical framework to investigate human-AI collaboration for different activities during operational decision making. By applying the framework in a case of an order dispatching system, we discover that human-AI collaboration modes can be delineated into complementarity, substitutability, and modularity. We posit that operational decision making can be vastly improved by scrupulously designed system with appropriate human-AI collaboration modes. This study also validates the idea of intelligence augmentation which emphasizes that AI plays an assistive role in enhancing and extending human capabilities to deliver better decisions.