His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Dubai Future Foundation, has today approved the establishment of a global classification system aimed at distinguishing the roles of humans and machines in the research, production, and publication of creative, scientific, academic, and intellectual content.
H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed remarked, “Distinguishing between human creativity and artificial intelligence has become a real challenge in light of today’s rapid technological advances. This calls for a new approach to recognise the growing role of intelligent machines. That’s why we launched the world’s first Human–Machine Collaboration Icons, a classification system that brings transparency to how research documents, publications, and content are created. We invite researchers, writers, publishers, designers, and content creators around the world to adopt this new global classification system and use it responsibly and in ways that benefit people,” he added.
H.H. Sheikh Hamdan has directed all Dubai Government entities to begin adopting this system in their research and knowledge-based initiatives. The Human–Machine Collaboration (HMC) classification system, developed by the Dubai Future Foundation, aims to enhance transparency in research and content production. It provides a visual representation that allows readers, researchers, and decision-makers to comprehend how much of a given output was shaped by intelligent machines, across various fields such as research, design, and publishing. These fields are increasingly reliant on machines and automation technologies.
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What are the different levels of collaboration?
The classification defines ‘intelligent machines’ as a broad category that includes a variety of digital technologies, such as algorithms, automation tools, generative AI models, and robotics, or any technological system that contributes to the research or content creation process.
The HMC system introduces five primary icons that indicate the level of collaboration between humans and intelligent machines. The first icon, “All Human,” signifies that content is fully produced by a human with no machine involvement. The second icon, “Human Led,” represents human-produced content that has been enhanced or checked by a machine for accuracy, correction, or improvement. The third icon, “Machine Assisted,” illustrates a scenario where humans and machines worked together iteratively to create content. The fourth icon, “Machine Led,” indicates that the machine took the lead in producing the content, while humans verified its quality and accuracy. Finally, the “All Machine” icon denotes that the content was entirely generated by a machine with no human input.
In addition to the five primary icons, the system also features nine functional icons that indicate where in the process human–machine collaboration occurred. These include ideation, literature review, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, writing, translation, visuals, and design. The icon system is designed to be flexible and adaptable across sectors, industries, and content formats, including image and video outputs. While it does not assign percentages or exact weights to the contribution of machines, it enables creators to transparently disclose their involvement, acknowledging that evaluation often relies on personal judgment.
