Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Aaron A. Toscano, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Charlotte Debate
  • Conference Presentations
    • Critical Theory/MRG 2023 Presentation
    • PCA/ACA Conference Presentation 2022
    • PCAS/ACAS 2024 Presentation
    • PCAS/ACAS Presentation 2021
    • SAMLA 2024 Presentation
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
    • SEACS 2022 Presentation
    • SEACS 2023 Presentation
    • SEACS 2024 Presentation
    • SEACS 2025 Presentation
    • SEWSA 2021 Presentation
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • April 10th: Analyzing Ethics
      • Ethical Dilemmas for Homework
      • Ethical Dilemmas to Ponder
      • Mapping Our Personal Ethics
    • April 12th: Writing Ethically
    • April 17th: Ethics Continued
    • April 19th: More on Ethics in Writing and Professional Contexts
    • April 24th: Mastering Oral Presentations
    • April 3rd: Research Fun
    • April 5th: More Research Fun
      • Epistemology and Other Fun Research Ideas
      • Research
    • February 13th: Introduction to User Design
    • February 15th: Instructions for Users
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters More Effective
    • February 1st: Reflection on Workplace Messages
    • February 20th: The Rhetoric of Technology
    • February 22nd: Social Constructions of Technology
    • February 6th: Plain Language
    • January 11th: More Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Audience & Purpose
    • January 23rd: Résumés and Cover Letters
      • Duty Format for Résumés
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • January 25th: More on Résumés and Cover Letters
    • January 30th: Achieving a Readable Style
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • January 9th: Introduction to the Class
    • Major Assignments
    • March 13th: Introduction to Information Design
    • March 15th: More on Information Design
    • March 20th: Reporting Technical Information
    • March 27th: The Great I, Robot Analysis
    • May 1st: Final Portfolio Requirements
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • August 23rd: Introduction to the Class
    • August 30th: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • December 6th: Words and Word Classes
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2023)
    • November 15th: Cohesive Rhythm
    • November 1st: Stylistic Variations
    • November 29th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms
      • Rhetoric of Fear (prose example)
    • November 8th: Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation
    • October 11th: Choosing Adjectivals
    • October 18th: Choosing Nominals
    • October 4th: Form and Function
    • September 13th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 27th: Coordination and Subordination
      • Parallelism
    • September 6th: Sentence Patterns
  • ENGL 4275/WRDS 4011: “Rhetoric of Technology”
    • April 23rd: Presentation Discussion
    • April 2nd: Artificial Intelligence Discussion, machine (super)learning
    • April 4th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • April 9th: Tom Wheeler’s The History of Our Future (Part I)
    • February 13th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 15th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 1st: Technology and Postmodernism
    • February 20th: Technology and Gender
    • February 22nd: Technology, Expediency, Racism
    • February 27th: Writing Workshop, etc.
    • February 6th: The Religion of Technology (Part 1 of 3)
    • February 8th: Religion of Technology (Part 2 of 3)
    • January 11th: Introduction to the Course
    • January 16th: Isaac Asimov’s “Cult of Ignorance”
    • January 18th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 23rd: Technology and Democracy
    • January 25th: The Politics of Technology
    • January 30th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • Major Assignments for Rhetoric of Technology
    • March 12th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 3
    • March 14th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 3
    • March 19th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 3 of 3
    • March 21st: Writing and Reflecting: Research and Synthesizing
    • March 26th: Artificial Intelligence and Risk
    • March 28th: Artificial Intelligence Book Reviews
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 11th: Knoblauch. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5
    • April 18th: Feminisms, Rhetorics, Herstories
    • April 25th:  Knoblauch. Ch. 6, 7, and “Afterword”
    • April 4th: Jacques Derrida’s Positions
    • February 15th: St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
    • February 1st: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2 & 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 22nd: Knoblauch. Ch. 1 and 2
    • February 29th: Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method
    • February 8th: Isocrates
    • January 11th: Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 25th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 1
    • March 14th: Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women
    • March 21st: Feminist Rhetoric(s)
    • March 28th: Knoblauch’s Ch. 3 and More Constitutive Rhetoric
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear
    • April 11th: McCarthyism Part 1
    • April 18th: McCarthyism Part 2
    • April 25th: The Satanic Panic
    • April 4th: Suspense/Horror/Fear in Film
    • February 14th: Fascism and Other Valentine’s Day Atrocities
    • February 21st: Fascism Part 2
    • February 7th: Fallacies Part 3 and American Politics Part 2
    • January 10th: Introduction to the Class
    • January 17th: Scapegoats & Conspiracies
    • January 24th: The Rhetoric of Fear and Fallacies Part 1
    • January 31st: Fallacies Part 2 and American Politics Part 1
    • Major Assignments
    • March 28th: Nineteen Eighty-Four
    • March 7th: Fascism Part 3
    • May 2nd: The Satanic Panic Part II
      • Rhetoric of Fear and Job Losses
  • Intercultural Communication on the Amalfi Coast
    • Pedagogical Theory for Study Abroad
  • LBST 2213-110: Science, Technology, and Society
    • August 22nd: Science and Technology from a Humanistic Perspective
    • August 24th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • August 29th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • August 31st: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • December 5th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • November 14th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 16th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 21st: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 28th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 30th: Violence in Video Games
    • November 7th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes Ch. 1-17
    • November 9th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes, Ch. 18-26
    • October 12th: Lies Economics Tells
    • October 17th: Brief Histories of Medicine, Salerno, and Galen
    • October 19th: Politicizing Science and Medicine
    • October 24th: COVID-19 Facial Covering Rhetoric
    • October 26th: Wells, H. G. Time Machine. Ch. 1-5
    • October 31st: Wells, H. G. The Time Machine Ch. 6-The End
    • October 3rd: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 12th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 19th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Prefaces and Ch. 1
    • September 26th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 2
    • September 28th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • September 7th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 5 and 6
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology
    • August 19: Introduction to the Course
    • August 21: More Introduction
    • August 26th: Consider Media-ted Arguments
    • August 28th: Media & American Culture
    • November 13th: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 3
    • November 18th: Feminism’s Non-Monolithic Nature
    • November 20th: Compulsory Heterosexuality
    • November 25th: Presentation Discussion
    • November 4: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 1
    • November 6: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 2
    • October 16th: No Class Meeting
    • October 21: Misunderstanding the Internet, Part 1
    • October 23: Misunderstanding the Internet, Part 2
    • October 28: The Internet, Part 3
    • October 2nd: Hauntology
    • October 30th: Social Construction of Sexuality
    • October 7:  Myth in American Culture
    • September 11: Critical Theory
    • September 16th: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • September 18th: Postmodernism, Part 1
    • September 23rd: Postmodernism, Part 2
    • September 25th: Postmodernism, Part 3
    • September 30th: Capitalist Realism
    • September 4th: The Medium is the Message!
    • September 9: The Public Sphere
  • Science Fiction and American Culture
    • April 10th: Octavia Butler’s Dawn (Parts III and IV)
    • April 15th: The Dispossessed (Part I)
    • April 17th: The Dispossessed (Part II)
    • April 1st: Interstellar (2014)
    • April 22nd: In/Human Beauty
    • April 24: Witch Hunt Politics (Part I)
    • April 29th: Witch Hunt Politics (Part II)
    • April 3rd: Catch Up and Start Octavia Butler
    • April 8th: Octavia Butler’s Dawn (Parts I and II)
    • February 11: William Gibson, Part II
    • February 18: Use Your Illusion I
    • February 20: Use Your Illusion II
    • February 25th: Firefly and Black Mirror
    • February 4th: Writing Discussion: Ideas & Arguments
    • February 6th: William Gibson, Part I
    • January 14th: Introduction to to “Science Fiction and American Culture”
    • January 16th: More Introduction
    • January 21st: Robots and Zombies
    • January 23rd: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • January 28th: American Studies Introduction
    • January 30th: World’s Beyond
    • March 11th: All Systems Red
    • March 13th: Zone One (Part 1)
      • Zone One “Friday”
    • March 18th: Zone One, “Saturday”
    • March 20th: Zone One, “Sunday”
    • March 25th: Synthesizing Sources; Writing Gooder
      • Writing Discussion–Outlines
    • March 27th: Inception (2010)
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • A Practical Editing Situation
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • How to Lie with Statistics
    • How to Make an Argument with Sources
    • Isaac Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”
    • Judith Butler, an Introduction to Gender/Sexuality Studies
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Oral Presentations
    • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire
  • Video Games & American Culture
    • April 14th: Phallocentrism
    • April 21st: Video Games and Neoliberalism
    • April 7th: Video Games and Conquest
    • Assignments for Video Games & American Culture
    • February 10th: Aesthetics and Culture
    • February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis
    • February 24th: Serious Games
    • February 3rd: More History of Video Games
    • January 13th: Introduction to the course
    • January 20th: Introduction to Video Game Studies
    • January 27th: Games & Culture
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
    • March 24th: Realism, Interpretation(s), and Meaning Making
    • March 31st: Feminist Perspectives and Politics
    • March 3rd: Risky Business?

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 255F
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
ENGL 4275/WRDS 4011: “Rhetoric of Technology” » March 26th: Artificial Intelligence and Risk

March 26th: Artificial Intelligence and Risk

Plan for the Day

  • Connect Neuromancer–Wintermute, Neuromancer, Dixie Flatline, and the novel in general–to contemporary assumptions of AI
  • F. T. Marinetti and the Italian Futurists
  • Thinking about Risks
  • Hugo Neri’s “Preface,” “Introduction,” and “Chapter 1”

Wintermute, Neuromancer, and Dixie Flatline

Let’s use Neuromancer to connect to today’s reading. Neri explains that fictional narratives influence cultural assumption about science and technology: “Science fiction, AI, and counterfactual thinking have composed a successful formula in the pop culture in the last decades” (30-31).

  • Wintermute and Neuromancer are RAM–Random Access Memory
    Dixie Flatline is ROM–Read Only Memory
  • The only governmental-ish group in the novel, The Turing Police
  • Wintermute was programmed to be free…
    “freedom’s just another word for / nothing left to lose” (Janis Joplin “Me and Bobby McGee”)

Science Fiction Acclimates the Public

Although Neri is from a different discipline, nearly a decade before his book was published, the influence of science fiction on technical communication, specifically the cultural assumptions about science and technology, was established…

  • Even though science fiction rarely focuses on possible, at least, contemporarily, technology or science, the narratives still acclimate audiences to perceptions of technology and science and implicitly or explicitly propose that science and technology, which are always advancing, continue to provide solutions and change conditions for humans and society overall. (23)
  • Science fiction narratives provide visions of what could come and how audiences might deal with technological change. (24)
  • Although science fiction communicates the rhetoric of technological progress, science fiction is a major genre that reflects audience belief that technological advances will solve disease, hunger, and even war. (24)

Toscano, Aaron A. Marconi’s Wireless and the Rhetoric of a New Technology. Springer, 2012.

Neri’s Chapter 1 “Risk, Imagination, and Artificial Intelligence”

  • p. 23: “If the components of the decoded message are inconsistent with previous beliefs or contradict values to which the receiver feels attracted, the signal is ignored or attenuated.”
    • Sounds like confirmation bias…
  • p. 24: “Even though there is an increasing awareness regarding fake news, which may bring some risks, it is virtually impossible to regulate peoples’ amplification of their perception of risk on something.”
    • Demonstrations vs. Experiments
  • p. 24: “the potential hazards from AI would never reach the public attention unless people and media communicate about these adverse possibilities.”
  • p. 25: “It seems that for laypeople, the concept of risk includes qualitative aspects such as dread, the likelihood of a mishap being fatal, and the catastrophic potential. In this sense, the idea of future risk drives the general perception and representation of possible threats.”
  • p. 27: Potential (probably to possible) and imminent risk is a matter of perception for lay audiences
    • “Roughly, the formation of a risk representation starts with the human and nonhuman effects caused by a hazardous event, which, in turn, triggers an extensive media coverage and consequently yields the perception of imminent risk.”

Risky Business

Hugo Neri discusses risks and risk perceptions before explaining that there are no real AI risks…only perceptions of possible risks, making the technology different from automobiles, nuclear power, or marriage. To get us started, let’s consider these risks:

  • Snakes (on the ground or on this %^&#$@ plane!)
  • Automobiles
    • Car accidents
    • Speeding vs running red lights
    • Ridin’ Dirty (in general)
    • “Tesla shares gain as Musk offers US customers self-driving software trial” (Reuters, 26 March 2024)
    • Don’t blink! Just a month later…Also, Full Self-Driving (FSD) is actually not accurate because human’s need to be available to take over.
      “Tesla Slashes EV, FSD Prices In Latest Strategy Shift. The Stock Keeps Falling.” (Investor’s Business Daily, 22 April 2024)
  • Plane crashes
  • Running with scissors
  • Unprotected sex
  • Winning the lottery
  • Investing in the stock market

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

To say this is a big topic would be an understatement. I mention in class that with the exception of those of you in advanced computing informatics majors our understanding of AI comes from popular sources: news reporting, political rhetoric, and, of course, science fiction. I have a VERY controversial interpretation of AI, but, before going there, let’s have some definitions:

  • Narrow (or Weak) Artificial Intelligence: machine learning that responds to users through “programmed” learning. (autocorrect, autofill, help bots, etc.).
  • General (or True) Artificial Intelligence: computers become as conscious as humans or surpass their abilities. (theoretical superintelligences)

We encounter weak AI daily, and the related technologies range from rudimentary for 2023 (autocorrect) to advanced (surveillance technologies facial recognition). From a social construction of science and technology standpoint, these AI technologies replicate social conditions, meaning social values are embedded into the system (e.g., racist faucets). Basically, the internet didn’t democratize information and access to services because it isn’t deployed in a democratic system; instead, it became a conduit for multinational corporations to make immense profits, which, of course, follows the logic of capitalism (c.f. “Database Culture”).

Science fiction often deals with assumptions about general AI, specifically machines becoming sentient and taking over. However, that situation is really a colonial metaphor that reflects Western culture’s history of colonization, enslavement, and exploitation of people and the environment. Such behavior is social: a nationalistic, aggressive group follows a path of domination through military and economic means.

Controversial statement: General Artificial Intelligence is a myth that will never come to be because it’s based on flawed assumptions that humans themselves aren’t programmed. Humans are machines that consume because, in late capitalist contexts specifically, because they’re conditioned to. Society is the entity and the profit motive keeps society alive by programming (advertising, education, ideology) consumers to keep consuming. This requires resources, and hegemonic groups employ force(s) to maintain their corporations’ access to materials that will continue maintaining the social entity. Sentient machines would not do this on their own: only under the already programmed paradigm of exploitation would machines carry out oppression. Just like QT, they work for the Master, the powers that be. Because there’s no originality in thinking, machines and humans alike follow programmed behaviors…and both are susceptible to glitches.

Consider the above a purposeful attempt to get you to think and draw comparisons among our materials. Popular discussions of AI rarely get to the philosophical level we’re aiming for. The course readings aren’t to have you conclude in a specific way but to get you to think, radically perhaps. Otherwise, we’re just idling (metaphorically or literally) in the fast food drive through so that the powers that be can profit.

Next Class

We’ll continue with Neri and finish Ch. 1 before going onto Ch. 4. I will someday have commented on all your Social Construction of Technology drafts.

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