AI Autonomy or Human Dependency? Defining the Boundary in Responsible AI with the $α$-Coefficient

The integrity of contemporary AI systems is undermined by a critical design flaw: the misappropriation of Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) models to mask systems that are fundamentally reliant on human labor. We term this structural reliance Human-Instead-of-AI (HISOAI). HISOAI systems represent an ethical failure and an unsustainable economic dependency, where human workers function as hidden operational fallbacks rather than strategic collaborators. To rectify this, we propose the AI-First, Human-Empowered (AFHE) paradigm. AFHE mandates a technological design where the AI component must achieve a minimum, quantifiable level of functional independence prior to deployment. This standard is formalized through the AI Autonomy Coefficient (alpha), a metric that determines the proportion of tasks that the AI successfully processes without mandatory human substitution. We introduce the AFHE Deployment Algorithm, an algorithmic gate that requires the system to meet a specified alpha threshold across both offline and shadow testing. By enforcing this structural separation, the AFHE framework redefines the human's role to focus exclusively on high-value tasks, including ethical oversight, boundary pushing, and strategic model tuning, thereby ensuring true system transparency and operational independence. This work advocates for a critical shift toward metric-driven, structurally sound AI architecture, moving the industry beyond deceptive human dependency toward verifiable autonomy.