Language as a Blessing: How AI Threatens the Future of Humanity.

We are narrative beings. We have a story for everything. Our dominant language narrative, the one found in all disciplines, including communication studies, claims that language is a tool born of evolutionary necessity. In other words, evolutionary pressures supposedly made for the invention of lang...

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Published in:Journal of Communication & Religion Vol. 47; no. 3; pp. 98 - 112
Main Author: Rodriguez, Amardo
Format: Article
Published: Religious Communication Association Fall2024
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        atl: Language as a Blessing: How AI Threatens the Future of Humanity.
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        au: Rodriguez, Amardo
        affil: Professor in the Communication and Rhetorical Studies Department at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York
      su:
        Dominant language
        Comparative grammar
        Communication models
        Artificial intelligence
        Artificial languages
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          Dominant language
          Comparative grammar
          Communication models
          Artificial intelligence
          Artificial languages
      keyword:
        artificial intelligence
        language diversity
        survival machines
        transactional model of communication
        universal grammar
      ab: We are narrative beings. We have a story for everything. Our dominant language narrative, the one found in all disciplines, including communication studies, claims that language is a tool born of evolutionary necessity. In other words, evolutionary pressures supposedly made for the invention of language. The evolutionary origins supposedly reflect the fact humans are, in the words of Richard Dawkins (1976), nothing but "survival machines," doing the business of "selfish genes." In being a tool, what language supposedly demands of us is mastery. We are to learn how to use it skillfully, effectively, and efficiently. We should aspire to become eloquent. We hear often in communication studies that rhetoric is the art of speaking well. In this essay, I challenge this dominant narrative. I contend that this narrative, besides promoting and sustaining all kinds of racism, diminishes our understanding of the human condition and ultimately threatens our prosperity. In short, it puts us on the wrong side of God. I contend that language is a blessing and that achieving any kind of enduring prosperity resides in us putting forth a new narrative that showcases the many ways that language is so.
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    language: English
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