The Future of Rhetoric: AI-Orators and Rhetorical Education

AI as a Rhetor

GPT-4 writes persuasive essays, speeches, and marketing texts. It adapts style to the audience, uses rhetorical figures, constructs arguments. This raises questions about the nature of rhetoric: if a machine can persuade—what is unique in human persuasion?

“Synthetic rhetoric”: AI systems create personalized persuasive content at scale. One operator + GPT = thousands of personalized persuasive messages per hour. This changes the “market of persuasion”: before, large-scale persuasion required media, money, organization. Now—API and a laptop.

Rhetoric of “AI explainability”: AI developers and regulators need rhetoric capable of explaining complex technical concepts to a broad audience. “Explainability” is not only a technical, but also a rhetorical task.

Rhetorical Education in the 21st Century

Classical rhetoric was taught in schools from antiquity until the 19th century. Then it was displaced by “literary” education. Today—a renaissance: “critical thinking”, “communication skills”, “media literacy” are rhetoric under other names.

“Debate” as a rhetorical practice: the ability to construct arguments from both sides, find weaknesses in a position, respond to counterarguments in real time. Many leaders are graduates of debate clubs.

“Socratic dialogue” as pedagogy: not the transmission of information, but the development of the ability to ask questions, test statements, build arguments. This can be practiced in any context—and it is more important than ever in a world of AI-generated persuasion.

Question for reflection: If AI will write the majority of persuasive texts—which rhetorical skills will remain uniquely valuable for humans? What do you plan to develop?