Synthetic Genres: Expert Genres, Non-Specialist Audiences, and Misinformation in the Artificial Intelligence Age

Brad Mehlenbacher University of Waterloo ; Ana Patricia Balbon University of Toronto ; Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher University of Waterloo

Abstract

Drawing on rhetorical genre studies, we explore research article abstracts created by generative artificial intelligence (AI). These synthetic genres—genre-ing activities shaped by the recursive nature of language learning models in AI-driven text generation—are of interest as they could influence informational quality, leading to various forms of disordered information such as misinformation. We conduct a two-part study generating abstracts about (a) genre scholarship and (b) polarized topics subject to misinformation. We conclude with considerations about this speculative domain of AI text generation and dis/misinformation spread and how genre approaches may be instructive in its identification.

Journal
Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Published
2025-04-01
DOI
10.1177/00472816231226249
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
OA PDF Hybrid
Topics
Export

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

  1. College Composition and Communication
  2. Technical Communication Quarterly

References (57) · 3 in this index

  1. Alba D. (2022). OpenAI Chatbot spits out biased musings despite guardrails. Bloomberg 8 December 2022. Retrei…
  2. 10.2307/j.ctt46nxp6
  3. 10.1145/3442188.3445922
  4. Written Communication
  5. Bowman E. (2023). A college student created an app that can tell whether AI wrote an essay. NPR Technology 9 …
Show all 57 →
  1. Brewster J. Arvanitis L. Sadeghi M. (2023). The next great misinformation superspreader: How ChatGPT could sp…
  2. Language models are few-shot learners
    Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems
  3. Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. (2022). How to identify misinformation disinformation and malinformation …
  4. Capell J. (2022). ChatGPT receives temporary stack overflow ban after wave of misinformation. Techreport 12 D…
  5. The book of memory: A study of memory in medieval culture
  6. 10.7208/chicago/9780226113623.001.0001
  7. 10.1016/j.esp.2006.09.004
  8. 10.1353/lib.2015.0014
  9. Reverse engineering the gendered design of Amazon’s Alexa: Methods in testing closed-sour…
    Digital Humanities Quarterly
  10. Genre and the new rhetoric
  11. 10.31468/cjsdwr.781
  12. 10.1007/s00146-022-01397-z
  13. Gao C. A. Howard F. M. Markov N. S. Dyer E. C. Ramesh S. Luo Y. Pearson A. T. (2022). Comparing scientific ab…
  14. Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses
  15. Gleason N. (2022). ChatGPT and the rise of AI writers: How should higher education respond? Times Higher Educ…
  16. Goldstein J. A. Sastry G. Musser M. DiResta R. Gentzel M. Sedova K. (2023). Generative language models and au…
  17. Gpt Generative Pretrained Transformer Thunström A. O. Steingrimsson S. (2022). Can GPT-3 write an academic pa…
  18. Technical Communication Quarterly
  19. 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.940903
  20. Heikkilä M. (2022). How to spot AI-generated text. MIT Technology Review 19 December 2022. Retreived from htt…
  21. Hsu T. Thompson S. A. (2023). Disinformation researchers raise alarms about A.I. chatbots. New York Times 8 F…
  22. 10.2307/3587930
  23. Jabotinsky H. Sarel R. (2022). Co-authoring with an AI? Ethical dilemmas and artificial intelligence 15 Decem…
  24. Khatun A. Brown D. G. (2023). Reliability check: An analysis of GPT-3’s response to sensitive topics and prom…
  25. 10.1021/acsenergylett.2c02758
  26. 10.1017/XPS.2020.37
  27. 10.7208/chicago/9780226458144.001.0001
  28. Lemieux B. (2023). Time to step up to the plate. University Affairs 18 September 2023. Retreived from https:/…
  29. Marcus G. (2022). AI platforms like ChatGPT are easy to use but also potentially dangerous. Scientific Americ…
  30. 10.26818/9780814213988
  31. 10.1080/00335638409383686
  32. A rhetoric of doing: Essays on written discourse in honor of James L. Kinneavy
  33. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  34. Milmo D. (2023). Google v Microsoft: Who will win the AI chatbot race? The Guardian 10 February 2023. Retreiv…
  35. Morrish L. (2023). Fact-checkers are scrambling to fight disinformation with AI. Wired 2 January 2023. Retrei…
  36. OpenAI. (2022). Sharing & Publication Policy. OpenAI API TERMS & POLICIES 14 November 2022. Retreived from ht…
  37. Perrigo B. (2023). Exclusive: OpenAI used Kenyan workers on less than $2 per hour to make ChatGPT less toxic.…
  38. Toward a sophistic definition of rhetoric
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  39. Rachini M. (2022). ChatGPT a “landmark event” for AI but what does it mean for the future of human labour and…
  40. 10.1163/9789004440265_020
  41. Talking about large language models
    arXiv Preprint
  42. Sharples M. (2022). New AI tools that can write student essays require educators to rethink teaching and asse…
  43. Sparkes M. (2022). OpenAI is developing a watermark to identify work from its GPT text AI. New Scientist. Ret…
  44. Stokel-Walker C. (2022). AI bot ChatGPT writes smart essays—Should professors worry? Nature 9 December 2022. …
  45. Stokel-Walker C. (2023). ChatGPT listed as author on research papers: Many scientists disapprove. Nature 18 J…
  46. Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings
  47. 10.1017/CBO9781139524827
  48. Thorbecke C. (2023). Google shares lose $100 billion after company’s AI chatbot makes an error during demo. C…
  49. Thunström A. O. (2022). We asked GPT-3 to write an academic paper about itself—Then we tried to get it publis…
  50. Vaccine Weekly. (2022). Malinformation—An emergent problem for medical journals and scientific communication.…
  51. Warner J. (2022). Freaking out about ChatGPT—Part I. Inside Higher Education. Retreived from https://www.insi…
  52. Weidinger L. Mellor J. Rauh M. Griffin C. Uesato J. Huang P. S. Cheng M. et al. (2021). Ethical and social ri…