Human-AI Collaborative Writing: Sharing the Rhetorical Task Load

This paper describes a work in progress case study of professional writers who use an AI writing assistant to generate digital marketing copy. To examine the impact of AI on the practice of professional writing, the author considers how using the AI writing assistant affects the cognitive task load experienced by human writers during each of the five canons of rhetoric, which he calls rhetorical load sharing. The author provides a working definition of AI writing technologies, describes an emerging human-machine collaborative writing process, and demonstrates what the rhetorical load sharing approach looks like for invention, the first canon of rhetoric.