While true for some things, it's not for others.

In our application, one key operation is that the user is required to classify a line item based on the text description. There's a huge code list of possible classifications, and the user has to pick one that is the most correct.

This is definitely a task that registers consciously. And, while most of the time it's fairly easy for trained users, there are often cases which require extra thought or research.

For example, a T-shirt of mostly cotton vs a T-shirt of mostly synthetic fibers should be classified differently. How would you know based on the description "Small Womens V neck Short"?

It's impossible to know the fabric there. So humans would just guess and often be wrong. That system needs an "unknown material" code.

Right, so the user would have to do further research like contacting their customer and ask.

Of course, an AI/ML system that could reliably classify a majority, and reliably classify the rest as "unknown", would be interesting. Not sure how close we are to that though.