https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6608-7530
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Abstract
The generative AI chatbot, as an artificial rhetorical agent participating in the invention and circulation of public discourse, shakes the foundations of rhetorical tenets such as agency, ethos, circulation, and justice; and in doing so, it further isolates rhetoric as amoral, ateleological technē concerned with mere calculated effects and consequences, and may ultimately contribute to a post-rhetoric condition. This article depicts a rhetorical profile of the generative AI chatbot characterized by stochastic rhetoric, which is distinguished from the conventional understanding of rhetoric as (human) conscious and purposeful use of language to induce change. Making a case for the possibility of a post-rhetoric condition, the article considers what it might mean for our conceptualization of ethos, circulation, and justice, and suggests ways of adapting to it.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The author wishes to express his sincere appreciation to Rhetoric Review editor Elise Hurley and reviewers Hugh Burns and Jason Swarts for their critical engagement with the manuscript. Salute to the trailblazers in the field of digital rhetoric and communication.
2 There are a variety of generative AI chatbot products. “The generative AI chatbot” with the definite article “the” refers to the technological concept of such chatbot as opposed to a singular chatbot product.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Zhaozhe Wang
Zhaozhe Wang is an Assistant Professor of Writing and Rhetoric Studies at the University of Toronto. His work, which explores the vitality (or lack thereof) of rhetorical circulation in the digital age, has appeared in Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric Review, and Rhetoric Society Quarterly. He is a recipient of the Theresa J. Enos Anniversary Award for his first Rhetoric Review essay titled “The Switched-off Circulation: A Rhetoric of Disconnect.”