# Accountable Human-AI Deliberation with LLMs: Scaling Collective Intelligence through Symbiotic Scaffolding

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.26940 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.26940/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 8 of its 28 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 May 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Towards Guaranteed Safe AI: A Framework for Ensuring Robust and Reliable AI Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.06624/) (2024)
- [Opportunities and Risks of LLMs for Scalable Deliberation with Polis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.11932/) (2023)
- [Exploring the Potential of Large Language Models in Computational Argumentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.09022/) (2023)
- [Towards Human-AI Deliberation: Design and Evaluation of LLM-Empowered Deliberative AI for AI-Assisted Decision-Making](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16812/) (2024)
- [PARM: Multi-Objective Test-Time Alignment via Preference-Aware Autoregressive Reward Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.06274/) (2025)
- [CounselBench: A Large-Scale Expert Evaluation and Adversarial Benchmarking of Large Language Models in Mental Health Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.08584/) (2025)
- [DAMASHA: Detecting AI in Mixed Adversarial Texts via Segmentation with Human-interpretable Attribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.04838/) (2025)
- [DeliberationBench: When Do More Voices Hurt? A Controlled Study of Multi-LLM Deliberation Protocols](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.08835/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large language models (LLMs) can support democratic deliberation at scales previously constrained by turn-taking and facilitation bandwidth. Recent work shows that LLM-generated group statements are often preferred over human-mediated outputs, while theoretical analyses argue that LLMs relax the simultaneity constraints limiting collective intelligence. Yet pure LLM mediation risks collapsing pluralism, over-optimizing for agreement, and undermining legitimacy when participants cannot contest how they are represented. We propose a symbiotic human-AI framework organized into three layers: observation and diversity amplification, facilitation with clause-level provenance, and human primacy for ratification. Our contributions include graded coverage, diversity, and erasure metrics with salience-aware weighting; a provenance pipeline combining cross-encoder similarity with causal knockout diagnostics; preference-conditioned trade-off control; equity-aware contestability workflows; adversarial robustness tests; and an evaluation protocol with ablation designs informed by evidence of LLM-as-judge limitations. The result is a testable blueprint for deliberation technology that scales collective intelligence while preserving agency and legitimacy.