Participatory AI: A Scandinavian Approach to Human-Centered AI
Authors:
Niklas Elmqvist,
Eve Hoggan,
Hans-Jörg Schulz,
Marianne Graves Petersen,
Peter Dalsgaard,
Ira Assent,
Olav W. Bertelsen,
Akhil Arora,
Kaj Grønbæk,
Susanne Bødker,
Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose,
Rachel Charlotte Smith,
Sebastian Hubenschmid,
Christoph A. Johns,
Gabriela Molina León,
Anton Wolter,
Johannes Ellemose,
Vaishali Dhanoa,
Simon Aagaard Enni,
Mille Skovhus Lunding,
Karl-Emil Kjær Bilstrup,
Juan Sánchez Esquivel,
Luke Connelly,
Rafael Pablos Sarabia,
Morten Birk
, et al. (23 additional authors not shown)
Abstract:
AI's transformative impact on work, education, and everyday life makes it as much a political artifact as a technological one. Current AI models are opaque, centralized, and overly generic. The algorithmic automation they provide threatens human agency and democratic values in both workplaces and daily life. To confront such challenges, we turn to Scandinavian Participatory Design (PD), which was…
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AI's transformative impact on work, education, and everyday life makes it as much a political artifact as a technological one. Current AI models are opaque, centralized, and overly generic. The algorithmic automation they provide threatens human agency and democratic values in both workplaces and daily life. To confront such challenges, we turn to Scandinavian Participatory Design (PD), which was devised in the 1970s to face a similar threat from mechanical automation. In the PD tradition, technology is seen not just as an artifact, but as a locus of democracy. Drawing from this tradition, we propose Participatory AI as a PD approach to human-centered AI that applies five PD principles to four design challenges for algorithmic automation. We use concrete case studies to illustrate how to treat AI models less as proprietary products and more as shared socio-technical systems that enhance rather than diminish human agency, human dignity, and human values.
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Submitted 10 June, 2026; v1 submitted 16 September, 2025;
originally announced September 2025.