{"id":14775,"date":"2018-01-31T13:15:09","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T18:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org\/?p=14775"},"modified":"2023-11-16T13:53:16","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T18:53:16","slug":"call-for-blog-carnival-contributions-rhetorics-and-ethics-in-smart-technologies-and-artificial-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org\/2018\/01\/31\/call-for-blog-carnival-contributions-rhetorics-and-ethics-in-smart-technologies-and-artificial-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"Call for Blog Carnival Contributions\u2013\u2013Rhetorics and Ethics in Smart Technologies and Artificial Intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Popular sources like <\/span>The Verge<\/i>, <\/span>Techcrunch<\/i>, and <\/span>Forbes <\/i>have recently revealed that millions of households have bought and installed \u201csmart home assistants\u201d or \u201csmart speakers\u201d like the <\/span>Amazon Echo<\/a> and <\/span>Google Home<\/a>. Since its release in mid October 2017, Google has reportedly sold more than 6 million units of its newest, more affordable smart speaker, the <\/span>Google Home Mini<\/a>. In the first quarter of 2018, Apple is slated to expand this market with its version of home assistant, the <\/span>Apple HomePod<\/a>. Together, these retail intelligent units are making artificial intelligence (AI) a recognizable and approachable household technology in an age of smart devices.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Blog<\/a><\/p>\n

It goes without saying, the proliferation of AI agents in our everyday life affects how we live, work, and play. In their recent work, Professional Communication and Network Interaction<\/i><\/a>, Heidi McKee and James Porter (2017) examine the changing practices of communication and develop a rhetorical theory of networked interaction and rhetorical ethics. In scrutinizing AI agents as professional communicators, they ask, how do human-AI interactions highlight the complexity of networked communication and invite us to keep the ethical questions at the forefront? From catfish profiles to tweet bots to \u201csmart\u201d assistants we now slowly rely on to perform digital tasks, there is an important theoretical void in the ethics of these intelligent automation that rhetoricians are called to help fill. We should also, as McKee and Porter contend, pay attention to the ethics in phatic aspects of AI-human interactions. In this sense, the purpose is not just to inform or persuade, but to develop a mutually beneficial relationship for rhetors and their audience.<\/p>\n

This raises additional questions of how intelligence in AI is identified\/defined and by whom. Focusing on a chatterbot that successfully passed the Turing Test for machine intelligence, Patricia Fancher (2016), in Composing Artificial Intelligence<\/i><\/a>, brings greater attention to the rhetoric of embodiment with AI. Fancher questions whose bodies are being erased or presented and how this functions as a performance of intelligence. Further considering the possibilities of AI, Jennifer Maher\u2019s (2016) Artificial Rhetorical Agents and the Computing of Phronesis<\/i><\/a> explores AI as rhetorical agent. This would require a machine to be \u201ccapable not only of making moral judgments but also explaining through the persuasive use of natural language\u2014that is, rhetoric\u2014the reasoning behind those judgments.\u201d Both Fancher and Maher, along with McKee and Porter, call for and provide a means of how AI can be critically examined in light of rhetorical theory.<\/p>\n

In this Blog Carnival, we wish to open a forum for discussing the roles of digital rhetoricians in affecting the design, development, and deployment of AIs for various contexts, including professional, educational, social, and political settings.<\/p>\n

Questions may include, but are not limited to:<\/p>\n