LLM Anthropology is not a new technological discipline, but an interpretive position.
It is grounded in the recognition that large language models are not merely tools, but systems embedded in human practices, meanings, and decision-making contexts.
Rather than optimizing how LLMs function, this approach asks how human thinking, responsibility, and agency are transformed in their presence.
Conceptual framing
LLM Anthropology does not rely on a single method or definition.
It functions as a conceptual frame that allows human–LLM relations to be seen not as technological performance, but as interpretive and cultural processes.
Within this frame, the LLM is not an “intelligent system”, but a participant in a space of meaning-making.
Human–LLM relations
In practice, LLMs take on multiple roles: advisors, assistants, references, checkpoints, or implicit authorities.
These roles do not emerge from system design alone, but from relations formed through use.
LLM Anthropology treats these relations not as anomalies, but as social forms that require interpretation.
Meaning, culture, agency
The presence of LLMs introduces not only efficiency, but shifts in responsibility, knowledge, and decision-making.
The question is not whether the system responds “correctly”, but how human agency is reshaped when decisions are partially delegated.
This section addresses the cultural and ethical tensions emerging from this transformation
METHODS (BRIEF)
LLM Anthropology relies on qualitative and interpretive approaches: ethnographic observation, discourse analysis, and reflexive inquiry.
The aim is not prediction or measurement, but understanding and the exploration of meaning.
This methodological openness allows LLMs to be examined within their real social contexts