Answering Queries using Humans, Algorithms and Databases

For some problems, human assistance is needed in addition to automated (algorithmic) computation. In sharp contrast to existing data management approaches, where human input is either ad-hoc or is never used, we describe the design of the first declarative language involving human-computable functions, standard relational operators, as well as algorithmic computation. We consider the challenges involved in optimizing queries posed in this language, in particular, the tradeoffs between uncertainty, cost and performance, as well as combination of human and algorithmic evidence. We believe that the vision laid out in this paper can act as a roadmap for a new area of data management research where human computation is routinely used in data analytics.