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The advent of AI-based chatbots powered by LLMs has sparked debates on their democratic implications. These debates typically focus on how LLMS spread misinformation and thus hinder the evaluative skills of people essential for informed decision-making and deliberation. This paper suggests that beyond the spread of misinformation, the political significance of LLMs extends to the core of political subjectivity and action. It explores how LLMs contribute to political de-skilling by influencing the capacities of critical engagement and collective action. Put differently, we explore how LLMs shape political subjectivity. We draw from Arendt\u2019s distinction between speech and language and Foucault\u2019s work on counter-conduct to articulate in what sense LLMs give rise to political de-skilling, and hence pose a threat to political subjectivity. The paper concludes by considering how to reconcile the impact of LLMs on political agency without succumbing to technological determinism, and by pointing to how the practice of parrhesia enables one to form one\u2019s political subjectivity in relation to LLMs.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1007\/s43681-024-00564-w","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,9,3]],"date-time":"2024-09-03T11:02:16Z","timestamp":1725361336000},"page":"2367-2379","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["Large language models, politics, and the functionalization of language"],"prefix":"10.1007","volume":"5","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5374-1687","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Olya","family":"Kudina","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2009-2198","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Bas","family":"de Boer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,9,3]]},"reference":[{"key":"564_CR1","unstructured":"Chomsky, N.: The false promise of ChatGPT. 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