Position: Reliable AI Needs to Externalize Implicit Knowledge: A Human–AI Collaboration Perspective

Hengyu Liu, TIANYI LI, Zhihong Cui, Yushuai Li, Zhangkai Wu, Torben Bach Pedersen, Kristian Torp, Christian S. Jensen

Abstract: This position paper argues that reliable AI requires infrastructure for human validation of implicit knowledge. AI learns from both explicit knowledge (papers, documentation, structured databases) and implicit knowledge (reasoning patterns, debugging processes, intermediate steps). Implicit knowledge remains unexternalized because documentation cost exceeds perceived value—yetAI learns from it indiscriminately, acquiring both beneficial patterns and harmful biases. Current reliability methods can only verify explicit knowledge against sources, creating a fundamental gap: the most valuable AI capabilities (reasoning, judgment, intuition) are precisely those we cannot verify. We propose KnowledgeObjects(KOs)—structured artifacts that externalize implicit knowledge into forms humans can inspect, verify, and endorse. Kostransform verification economics: what was previously too costly to verify becomes feasible, enabling accumulated human validation to improve reliability over time.