Editorial Alignment: A Participatory Approach to Engaging Editorial Expertise in LLM-mediated Knowledge Dissemination
For public knowledge institutions, this work addresses the challenge of maintaining editorial authority in LLM-mediated knowledge dissemination.
This paper investigates how editors can participate in re-aligning LLM interfaces to editorial standards through design workshops, introducing editorial alignment as a design practice within Participatory AI.
The emergence of LLM-driven information services is reshaping the conditions under which public knowledge institutions operate, threatening to absorb the editorial function these institutions exist to exercise. While LLMs offer powerful new affordances for knowledge dissemination, editorial authority is challenged by pretrained LLMs that arrive already aligned with the values and dissemination strategies of their commercial developers. This paper investigates editor participation in re-aligning LLM interfaces to editorial standards through design workshops, in a case study where we design and implement an LLM-enabled encyclopedia interface with a Nordic public knowledge institution. We introduce editorial alignment as a design practice within Participatory AI, framing AI alignment as a design process and positioning the editorial standard as a design artefact that translates editorial practice and values into alignment objectives for technical implementation. Last, we discuss how editorial alignment can create space for ongoing participation and give editors agency in LLM-mediated knowledge dissemination.