Robots in the Room: A Qualitative Exploration of Democratic Agency and AI-Augmented Deliberations

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly integrated into civic platforms and decision-making processes, the nature of public deliberation is shifting. While AI offers potential solutions to scalability and moderation in deliberative democracy, its impact on human agency remains underexplored. The project adopted an exploratory design, convening six small-group deliberations. Each group included four humans and one humanoid robot. Through semi-structured post-deliberation interviews, we investigated how embodied algorithmic intervention influenced perceived ownership of the discourse. Our initial findings suggested a "Competence-Agency Paradox": while participants valued the AI's ability to synthesise information and enforce civility, they reported a diminished sense of democratic agency, characterised by epistemic deference to the machine and a reluctance to explore emotional or intuitive lines of reasoning. We argue that without careful design, AI-augmented deliberations risk prioritising procedural efficiency over the messy, human autonomy required for genuine democratic legitimacy.