Abstract
Persuasive AI managed algorithms function less as a rational instrument of influence and more as a performer that choreographs desire through embodied feedback loops. I propose that contemporary algorithmic systems do not persuade by presenting arguments or symbolic meaning, but instead operate at the level of lack, engineering micro-interruptions of satisfaction that keep users circulating within circuits of jouissance (Lacan; Possati). In this sense, the algorithm performs by withholding just enough of what is desired to sustain anticipation, repetition, and the promise of future fullness. Through Schechner, Phelan, and Butler, persuasion is an enactment, an embodied event rather than a transfer of meaning. Sub-symbolic persuasion is a choreography of timings, rhythms, and affective cues that act on the body before conscious interpretation. Every scroll, click and swipe becomes a collaborative performance in which the system and the user “become-with” one another (Haraway; Barad; Hayles). Persuasion emerges in this performance where the user feels the action as self-generated even as the algorithm shapes the conditions of its emergence. Through the lens of precarity as a politically induced condition of instability (Butler; Fragkou), I argue that persuasive AI managed algorithms redistribute precarity through affective performance rather than ideology. Power operates through repetition and gesture, not belief. The paper concludes by suggesting how performance studies offer tools for intervention such as exposing algorithmic staging and achieving embodied awareness. Creating friction and counter performance where a user can reframe resistance not as withdrawal from technology, but as performing otherwise within its infrastructures
Presenters
Taylor GruenlohAssistant Professor, Arts, Languages, and Philosophy Department, Missouri University of Science & Technology, Missouri, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2026 Special Focus—Human-Centered AI Transformations
KEYWORDS
AI, Performance, Precarity, Lacan, Persuasion, Algorithm
