Automated infrastructures: participation's changing role in postindustrial work

John T. Sherrill Qatar University ; Michael J. Salvo Purdue University West Lafayette

Abstract

As artificial intelligence (AI) automates technical and dialogic processes, technical communicators produce value through articulating complex problems, facilitating new forms of participation, and managing user-generated content via experience architecture. Automated and intelligent agents are least able to grasp the context of experiences, requiring human input/feedback for maximum performance. The examples we trace both prepare communities to embrace AI as part of the available information infrastructure and create an automated infrastructure of intelligent augmented action. Following Star's anthropological investigation of infrastructure, we analyze organizational examples where rhetoric entangles AI, automation, generative design, additive manufacturing, gift labor, and assembly lines.

Journal
Communication Design Quarterly
Published
2022-07-01
DOI
10.1145/3507857.3507860
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Cited by in this index (2)

  1. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  2. Journal of Business and Technical Communication

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