According to some embodiments a competence module is provided to: receive an objective; select a machine learning model associated with the objective; receive data from the at least one data source; determine at least one next input based on the received data; determine whether the at least one next input is in a competent region or is in an incompetent region of the machine learning model; when the at least one next input is inside the competent region, generate an output; determine an estimate of uncertainty for the generated output; when the uncertainty is below an uncertainty threshold, the machine learning model is competent and when the uncertainty is above the uncertainty threshold, the machine learning model is incompetent; and operate the physical asset based on one of the competent and incompetent state of the machine learning model. Numerous other aspects are provided.