Abstract

Authors: Ana Pop Stefanija ; Rob Heyman

Mainstream artificial intelligence (AI) ethics primarily takes vertical approaches: top-down, principle-driven and expert-led frameworks that often exclude the very publics affected by algorithmic systems. This paper explores whether citizen juries (CJs) can function as a horizontal alternative empirical ethics method that emphasizes participation, situated knowledge and epistemic justice. We conducted a citizen jury with Brussels residents to deliberate on the use of an AI system for electricity distribution during brownouts. The jury process combined guidance ethics, speculative fiction, and generative AI tools to scaffold inclusive deliberation. Using affordance theory, we analyze how the citizen jury method structurally mediates certain forms of participation and ethical reasoning. We evaluate its normative value through the lenses of epistemic justice and effective performativity. Our findings show that citizen juries can foster testimonial inclusion and support hermeneutical sense-making, offering a partial corrective to abstract, generic AI ethics. However, we also identify critical constraints: problem-posing was narrowed, alternative epistemologies discouraged, and the outputs risked reproducing the generic performativity forms of vertical ethics. While citizen juries hold promise for doing AI ethics otherwise, their transformative potential hinges on reflexively examining their own methodological affordances and institutional framing.