Who Is in Charge?: Why AI Must Remain Under Human Control

Who is in charge when AI systems advise, decide, automate, and act across institutions?

As artificial intelligence becomes more capable, faster, and more autonomous, the old promise of “human in the loop” is no longer sufficient. Many systems now operate at a speed and scale where human review can become ceremonial: a person is present, but not actually positioned to see, challenge, stop, or answer for the system’s conduct.

Who Is in Charge? argues for a different doctrine: Human in the Oversight.

Khaled Koubaa draws on more than two decades at the intersection of Internet governance, technology policy, corporate public policy, and institutional accountability to examine how power shifts when AI systems move from tools to actors inside organizations.

The book explains why meaningful control must be designed at the level of authority, visibility, intervention, accountability, and trust, not added later as a superficial review layer.

Written for policymakers, board members, executives, regulators, auditors, technologists, and institutional leaders, this book offers a practical governance framework for AI systems that are becoming more agentic, embedded, and consequential.

The central question is simple: as machines gain capability, can humans still remain genuinely in charge?