Team Roles & Rhetorical Intelligence in Human-Machine Writing

The Ethics of (Non)disclosure: Large Language Models in Professional, Nonacademic Writing Contexts

“…McKee and Porter (2022) claim that AI's growing emphasis on interactivity has transformed the dynamics of human-AI collaboration, leading to more complex and, in some instances, more equal relationships: Increasingly, professional communicators are going to be teaming with AI-based writing systems to produce reports, marketing materials, news and feature stories, training videos, and other kinds of informational and promotional communications. (McKee & Porter, 2022, p. 390) They identify four roles that technologies can play when composing with a human collaborator: tool, assistant, writer, and executive decision-maker (McKee and Porter, 2022).…”

“…In both roles, the technology is subordinate to the human writer. Tools include typewriters, basic spelling and grammar checkers, speech-to-text services, and other relatively instrumental and inflexible aids-though McKee and Porter (2022) are right to point out that these tools "influence how we write and how we think about writing" and are not entirely "instrumentally neutral" (p. 385). By contrast, assistants go further: they are "smarter," more adaptive, and capable of performing more complex tasks.…”

“…Examples of assistants include predictive text services like Google's Smart Compose, virtual assistants like Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa, and Microsoft's Editor, which not only recommends spelling and grammar corrections but also features "tone detection"advertised as helping "users make thoughtful decisions about the way a message is delivered in emails, chats, and documents" (Eoanou, 2022). McKee and Porter (2022) help clarify the difference between tools and assistants by explaining that "human assistants might be thanked in an academic paper or acknowledged for their role in the process, but we don't typically think of them as co-writers" (p. 385). It is difficult to imagine an author seriously thanking Microsoft Word's spellcheck in the acknowledgments section of an academic paper.…”

“…According to McKee and Porter (2022), technologies occupying the "writer" role in human-machine interactions "would receive some form of co-authorship credit" if they were human (p. 385). These technologies "contribute in more substantial ways than just suggesting words or phrases" (p. 385).…”

“…165-66). At a higher level, McKee and Porter (2022) express concern that many developers of AI systems have placed too much trust in big data. McKee and Porter (2022) call for a more thoughtful approach that accounts for possible data manipulation, the shortcomings of data, and the complexities of communication between humans and AI systems.…”