Efficient Human-in-the-Loop Active Learning: A Novel Framework for Data Labeling in AI Systems

arXiv stat.ML / 3/31/2026

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Key Points

  • The paper addresses the practical challenge that most real-world data are unlabeled and that expert labeling is costly, especially for specialized domains like radiology image interpretation by physicians.
  • It proposes an efficient human-in-the-loop active learning framework that goes beyond selecting which samples to label by also learning how to structure the next query to experts.
  • A key contribution is a model that integrates information from different query types, enabling the system to automatically decide the optimal next questioning strategy.
  • The approach combines a data-driven exploration/exploitation mechanism and can be embedded into multiple active learning algorithms.
  • Experiments via simulation on five real-world datasets, including a complex real-image task, show improved accuracy and lower loss versus other active learning methods.

Abstract

Modern AI algorithms require labeled data. In real world, majority of data are unlabeled. Labeling the data are costly. this is particularly true for some areas requiring special skills, such as reading radiology images by physicians. To most efficiently use expert's time for the data labeling, one promising approach is human-in-the-loop active learning algorithm. In this work, we propose a novel active learning framework with significant potential for application in modern AI systems. Unlike the traditional active learning methods, which only focus on determining which data point should be labeled, our framework also introduces an innovative perspective on incorporating different query scheme. We propose a model to integrate the information from different types of queries. Based on this model, our active learning frame can automatically determine how the next question is queried. We further developed a data driven exploration and exploitation framework into our active learning method. This method can be embedded in numerous active learning algorithms. Through simulations on five real-world datasets, including a highly complex real image task, our proposed active learning framework exhibits higher accuracy and lower loss compared to other methods.