The Age of Questions: Truth Regimes and Subjectivity in the Era of Large Language Models

This essay explores how digital technologies shape subjectivity's infra-political constitution, focusing on large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT or Gemini within what philosophers, inspired by Michel Foucault, term the "digital truth regime." After defining this regime, the essay identifies five key traits of LLMs: presentism in truth experience, the distancing of social mediation, a probabilistic approach to truth, a redefinition of self-expression, and a new conception of truth-production. While the first three extend the digital truth regime of the 2000s, the last two mark a shift in neoliberal subjectivity. In the LLM era, subjectivity is less about asserting truth than about formulating questions and navigating big data systems. This positions the empowered subject as a questioning subjectivity, emphasizing strategic inquiry over knowledge possession: a transformation with profound implications for digital epistemology and personal agency.