Faux-Social LLMs and the Resistance of Rejection

The purpose of my proposed paper is to highlight the recognition of coercive or detrimental engagements with LLMs as a resistance act in itself. Looking at the manipulative functions of LLMs as currently designed, which operate on both attention control and narcissistic mirroring to entrap user attention, engagement and influence identity formation, I'll suggest that both the immediate recognition of that process and the conscious framing of rejection/discomfort that may follow represent an embryonic form of everyday resistance. Drawing on my own conceptual framework of the Resistance of Rejection I’ll aim to explore both the immediate benefits and greater potentials of an immediate sense of understanding, discomfort or rejection of design led, insidious attempts at narrowing agential possibilities for the individual user of LLMs. For the former I suggest that simple awareness of how the centralised powers behind the most popular GAIs seek to encircle users within a curated cultural and knowledge landscape can in itself lead to a greater sense of resistance as critical perceptions of that process forewarn and forearm users. For the latter I’ll point towards the potential for everyday practical resistances as that awareness shifts from internal discomfort to possibly external manifestations – such as rejections of algorithmic ‘guidance’, de-technologising and valorisation of human engagement and meaning building over the ersatz managerialism of an intentionally limiting LLM. Existing work increasingly covers the capacities of LLMs both as evolved engines of attention retention and pseudo-social mechanisms for emotional and intellectual manipulation, however less is said of the emergent capacities to resist such managerial engagements. To build upon that understanding I view the overall purpose of this paper as being to set out a position that a: recognises the ability of individual agency to react to those culturally ubiquitous impositions and b: set out the foundational steps for wider resistance potentials against such techno-authoritarian impositions.