Well, for problems that are simply looking for a ranked relationship if you have human input it could be used to train a ML that attempts to look for similar correlations...or you could just use your human mechanical turks that are already informing you. ML problems that are good are the ones not trying to approximate reality like CWBAB.

I'm doubtful we'll see an ai that makes a serious jump without directly interacting with the world we live in. Under that measure cars might be the closest since you learn to interact with the bounds of where it can and can't go is similar to a toddler learning to crawl.