As AI systems increasingly impact society, meaningful and actionable citizen input in their development becomes critical. This workshop explores the 'participatory turn' in AI—a citizen-centred approach that shifts power towards those who use or are affected by AI systems. We invite contributions from people who are working at the intersection of AI and HCI and who wish to focus on the interfaces and tools (or possible 'boundary objects') that will ensure that citizen values will inform technical AI development.
Current participatory approaches often fail to influence actual AI systems, with citizen values becoming trivialised during translation to technical requirements. There remains a worrying translation gap between participatory initiatives and the technical development of AI systems, particularly as smaller-scale community-based methods struggle to impact the globalised operation of commercial AI systems.
This half-day workshop aims to bring together researchers and practitioners from HCI, AI, humanities and the social sciences, to examine how public deliberation can inform AI development and ensure AI alignment with human values.
We ask: (i) how can we best reconcile the values of AI developers and user communities, and (ii) what methods might ensure the translation of these values into actionable tools that can have a genuine impact on AI systems development?
Introduction to the aims of the workshop (15 mins)
Shared provocations and positions (60 minutes): Lightning talks (3-5 minutes each) surfacing key tensions around risk articulation, evolving values, platform integration, and democratic legitimacy
Organisation into breakout groups (15 minutes)
Coffee Break
Thematic breakout discussions (60 minutes): Self-organised around the challenges that resonate most and conducting a deep-dive into the examples from the first session.
Collective synthesis session (30 minutes): Share key insights, map the landscape of current approaches, identify fundamental barriers and promising directions, and acknowledge what remains unsolved.
Wrap-up and next steps (15 minutes): Identify collaboration opportunities and plan follow-up activities.
Materials provided: All position papers and provocations will be distributed before the event. Discussion templates, note-taking tools, and simple prototyping materials will be available. All submissions and documentation will be available in a shared digital repository, updated with key discussions and outcomes following the workshop.
We invite contributions that help us understand the landscape and challenges of participatory AI. Your submission will contribute to building a realistic picture of the current state of the art—not just showcasing successes, but providing honest assessments of contexts, assumptions, and limitations.
Your work will help us:
Map current approaches to key challenges in participatory AI
Identify where theoretical critiques meet practical attempts
Surface gaps where further research is most urgently needed
Distinguish meaningful participation from tokenistic engagement
Understand what works, what fails, and why
We particularly welcome contributions that explore:
Interactive interfaces or boundary objects for value elicitation within different communities
Critical analysis of failed or problematic participatory attempts
Methods for capturing evolving community values over time
Approaches for making citizen concerns actionable for developers
Tensions between small-scale participation and large-scale AI deployment
We invite 1-2 page provocations in any of the following formats:
A case study of participatory AI work done or currently underway—including both successes and challenges encountered
A critique or summary of an existing exciting paper in the participatory AI space
A description of a participatory process you have designed, implemented, or observed
An account of challenges encountered whilst trying to do participatory AI—we particularly value honest reflections on what didn't work and why
Submissions should be formatted as PDF documents and can include images, diagrams, or other visual materials to illustrate your points. We encourage submissions that present examples of boundary objects (interfaces, tools, methods) or reflect critically on the tensions and limitations of participatory approaches.
Submission deadline: December 19th 2025
Notification: January 9th 2025
Workshop date: March 23rd (To be confirmed)
Submit your provocation to: p.briggs@northumbria.ac.uk
All accepted submissions will be made available to participants before the workshop and included in our online repository for continued community engagement.