Case Study

Select the right human reference when system error is very high.

Scenario: A company is building a vision model that sorts package photos into damaged versus undamaged. The current system makes 38% errors. The team can use annotations from floor supervisors with a 12% error rate or from a small group of veteran quality specialists with a 4% error rate.

Question: Which group should the team prioritize for labels and for generating practical intuitions? Explain using the idea of a human-level reference.

Sample answer: The floor supervisors are sufficient. Because the system error is still very high at 38%, the difference between a 12% reference and a 4% reference is too small to matter much at this stage. Either group is far better than the system, and the cheaper reference can still provide useful intuition and labels for improvement.

Key points:

  • The system error is large.
  • The gap between 12% and 4% is not the main bottleneck here.
  • The lower-cost human reference is adequate for guidance.

Rubric: A correct answer chooses the floor supervisors and explains that, with such a high system error rate, the exact human reference error is not critical for the next improvement step.

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Updated 2026-08-12

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