I’ve never given rhetoric much thought unless it was an assignment for my classes. Then again, most courses I’ve taken only go surface level: historical origins, components, etc. How could introductory course not! Foss knowingly casts a wide net with the definition of Rhetoric as “the uniquely human ability to use symbols to communicate with one another ” (11). [a more vague statement never spoken] The use of rhetoric is so fluid to the point that anything, spoken or written, can be considered rhetoric, from lawyers to artists to scientists, all of them are using rhetoric……. and maybe in the future even AI.
Reading Brenton article The New Writing Curriculum gave me an insight into different institutions attempts and explanations on their curriculum. However, as I was reading I could not help but to think about the futility of it all in our time. In recent times artificial intelligence has caught up to us in the education, and creative fields. I was always of the opinion that certain areas would be unaffected by the incoming storm, that is AI.
Creativity is not something you can program into 1s and 0s. You cant program the imagination of a poet, or the creativity of an educator. Though as of late it seems you can get close, and with more time and more innovation that line Creeps in a petty pace from day to day. Until we end up with this . A sentient AI that decides we’re the issue. I digress.
Despite the existential dread that it might’ve wrought, I decided to give ChatGPT a whirl. Scope out the competition, if you will.
I asked it several questions, rhetoric, composition, poetry, 5 paragraph essays
Can this AI (and future versions of it) replace Educators, poets, authors? No, not yet and not entirely. Could it be useful? Sure, but it will cause many issues before it can become a helpful tool. How will educators know if AI wrote the book summary they’re grading? Can plagiarism tools differentiate Ai writing from students writing?
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