---
_id: '61223'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: '<jats:p>Contemporary debates about artificial intelligence (AI) still treat
    automation as a straightforward substitution of human labor by machines. Drawing
    on Goffman’s dramaturgical sociology, this paper reframes AI in the workplace
    as <jats:italic>supplementary</jats:italic> rather than <jats:italic>substitutive</jats:italic>
    automation. We argue that the central—but routinely overlooked—terrain of struggle
    is symbolic-interactional: workers continuously stage, conceal, and re-negotiate
    what counts as “real” work and professional competence. Large language models
    (LLMs) such as ChatGPT exemplify this dynamic. They quietly take over the invisible,
    routinised tasks that underpin cognitive occupations (editing, summarizing, first-draft
    production) while leaving humans to enact the highly visible or relational facets
    that sustain occupational prestige. Drawing on diverse sources to illustrate our
    theoretical argument, we show how individual workers, dramaturgical teams, and
    entire professional fields manage impressions of expertise in order to counter
    status threats, renegotiate fees, or obscure the extent of AI assistance. The
    paper itself, having been intentionally written with the ‘aid’ of all presently
    available frontier AI models, serves as a meta-reflexive performance of professional
    self-staging. The dramaturgical framework clarifies why utopian tales of friction-free
    augmentation and dystopian narratives of total displacement both misread how automation
    is actually unfolding. By foregrounding visibility, obfuscation, and impression
    management, the article presents a differentiated case for AI’s impact on the
    performative structure of work, outlines diagnostic tools for assessing real-world
    AI exposure beyond hype-driven headlines, and argues for a more human-centered
    basis for evaluating policy responses to the ‘fourth industrial revolution.’ In
    short, AI enters the labor process not as an autonomous actor, but as a prop within
    an ongoing social performance—one whose scripts, stages, and audiences remain
    irreducibly human.</jats:p>'
article_number: '1614473'
author:
- first_name: Nils
  full_name: Klowait, Nils
  id: '98454'
  last_name: Klowait
  orcid: 0000-0002-7347-099X
- first_name: Maria
  full_name: Erofeeva, Maria
  last_name: Erofeeva
citation:
  ama: Klowait N, Erofeeva M. The presentation of self in the age of ChatGPT. <i>Frontiers
    in Sociology</i>. 2025;10. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2025.1614473">10.3389/fsoc.2025.1614473</a>
  apa: Klowait, N., &#38; Erofeeva, M. (2025). The presentation of self in the age
    of ChatGPT. <i>Frontiers in Sociology</i>, <i>10</i>, Article 1614473. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2025.1614473">https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2025.1614473</a>
  bibtex: '@article{Klowait_Erofeeva_2025, title={The presentation of self in the
    age of ChatGPT}, volume={10}, DOI={<a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2025.1614473">10.3389/fsoc.2025.1614473</a>},
    number={1614473}, journal={Frontiers in Sociology}, publisher={Frontiers Media
    SA}, author={Klowait, Nils and Erofeeva, Maria}, year={2025} }'
  chicago: Klowait, Nils, and Maria Erofeeva. “The Presentation of Self in the Age
    of ChatGPT.” <i>Frontiers in Sociology</i> 10 (2025). <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2025.1614473">https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2025.1614473</a>.
  ieee: 'N. Klowait and M. Erofeeva, “The presentation of self in the age of ChatGPT,”
    <i>Frontiers in Sociology</i>, vol. 10, Art. no. 1614473, 2025, doi: <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2025.1614473">10.3389/fsoc.2025.1614473</a>.'
  mla: Klowait, Nils, and Maria Erofeeva. “The Presentation of Self in the Age of
    ChatGPT.” <i>Frontiers in Sociology</i>, vol. 10, 1614473, Frontiers Media SA,
    2025, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2025.1614473">10.3389/fsoc.2025.1614473</a>.
  short: N. Klowait, M. Erofeeva, Frontiers in Sociology 10 (2025).
date_created: 2025-09-11T14:08:31Z
date_updated: 2025-09-11T14:10:30Z
department:
- _id: '603'
doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2025.1614473
intvolume: '        10'
language:
- iso: eng
project:
- _id: '119'
  name: TRR 318 - Project Area Ö
publication: Frontiers in Sociology
publication_identifier:
  issn:
  - 2297-7775
publication_status: published
publisher: Frontiers Media SA
status: public
title: The presentation of self in the age of ChatGPT
type: journal_article
user_id: '98454'
volume: 10
year: '2025'
...