RHET AI. Critical Rhetoric in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

This article advances a framework for a critical rhetoric of artificial intelligence by interrogating the communicative, cultural, and epistemic implications of generative AI. It contends that prevalent metaphors, particularly anthropomorphic framings and the “black box” concept, constitute discursive distortions that simultaneously mystify technical operations and legitimate problematic sociotechnical imaginaries. From a rhetorical perspective, AI-generated texts must be understood not as products of intentional agency but as probabilistic recombinations of culturally hegemonic topoï, producing persuasive surface structures that present probable arguments that are not necessarily true. Generative AI calls for a reconceptualization of authorship in terms of hybrid constellations encompassing human prompters, system developers, authors behind training corpora, and circulating agents. Situating these phenomena within the longue durée of rhetorical theory, the article demonstrates how generative AI resonates with earlier models of formulaic and topical production while simultaneously accelerating communicative processes, enabling adaptive personalization, and destabilizing shared common grounds. The analysis underscores the urgency of a rhetorical critique that foregrounds the persuasive capacities of generative AI, problematizes its cultural imaginaries, and cultivates communicative competencies necessary for navigating the transformations of discourse in algorithmically mediated publics.