WRT302: AI and Advocacy

This special topics Critical Writing Seminar was offered through the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stony Brook University in Spring 2024.

This course was created as a part of my IDEA Fellowship in Ethical AI. I wanted to accomplish two things:

1. Get students thinking about the larger cultural, rhetorical, and democratic impacts of AI in everyday life. So much prominent discourse about AI and higher education is about important things like plagiarism, scientific inquiry, pedagogy and instruction, deepfakes, manipulation, and so on. These are incredibly important, but don’t capture the banal but important communicative effects of AI being used more and more often in everyday communication and advocacy. What happens when you assess every argument and persuasive message you see as potentially written by AI? What happens to cultures of democratic discussion, deliberation, argument–cultures already atrophying from algorithmic social media, growing fascism, and disturbing displays of inequality?
   
2. Produce something with students as a result of this inquiry that could be useful for a public, not just academic, audience. In this course, students and I created a public-facing white paper report entitled “AI and Advocacy: Maximizing Potential, Minimizing Risk.” The report was mostly geared toward professionals working in advocacy communications and advocacy more broadly. It introduces advocates to AI tools and specific communicative and ethical concerns they should have in approaching those tools. These advocates make so much of the social change-related discourse we see every day in social media posts and campaigns, press releases, speeches, messaging guides, websites, and so on. Even if this discourse sometimes appears as banal, these messages are carefully crafted and are key to our civic life. They influence our everyday conversations about issues of collective importance. The guide hopes to influence the health of our civic life by helping the creators of that important content deploy AI responsibly.

We had a great time in the class, and the report has begun to reach important audiences. “AI and Advocacy” has been shared by Stories Change Power in their webinar with the Public Interest Communications Educator’s Network, and it was featured in the Public Interest Technology University Network’s newsletter. You can read my blog post about the report here.

Below is a condensed version of the syllabus, and you can view the entire syllabus and schedule on Google Docs.

Course Description

New, publicly-accessible AI tools like ChatGPT, Google Bard, Dall-E, and Midjourney are reshaping practices of writing and communication. In this critical writing seminar, “AI and Advocacy,” we’ll focus our efforts on just one part of this changing rhetorical landscape: the use of AI tools in service of various advocacy goals and the ethical and political ramifications of such use. We’ll consider various causes, contexts, and roles, such as speechwriting for elected officials, community organizing for environmental efforts, or large media campaigns in service of intersectional justice movements. In the first half of the course, we will collaboratively create a digital resource that details important concerns regarding the responsible use of AI in advocacy contexts. In the second half of the course, we will host an AI Advocacy Fair. Students will gain experience with designing pedagogical resources and with preparing research insight for public audiences; additionally, students will be able to advocate for the role of their human writing skills in the AI age.

Learning Outcomes

After successfully completing this course, students will be able to:

• Explain major issues at the intersection of AI and advocacy 
• Defend your ethical position(s) toward the use of AI in various advocacy contexts
• Write and revise collaboratively for public audiences
• Conceptualize and produce public and pedagogical resources that respond with nuance, creativity, and bold responses to pressing societal issues, especially Artificial Intelligence 
• Engage in critical conversations about political and social justice advocacy in professional, personal, and civic settings 

Assignments

Here are the two assignments we used to create and present the report and its findings.

Report: Major Concerns and Opportunities in AI for Advocacy – 35% 

Our first major project as a class is to produce a report outlining what we believe are the major concerns at the intersection of AI and Advocacy. What should advocates consider before/while using AI tools? We’ll use a few projects to help us develop this report.
 

1. AI + Advocacy Contexts Report: You will be assigned either an issue area (e.g., the environment or public health), a sector (e.g. nonprofits or public relations professionals), or an advocacy genre (e.g., speechwriting or social media campaigns) to research.
   1. Annotated Bibliography. First, you will find 8 sources, including at least 4 peer-reviewed sources, that will help you understand how AI tools stand to impact advocates in this area. 
   2. Optional outline. You are given the option to submit an optional outline. It is not graded for credit but instead offers an opportunity for feedback before submitting the report.
   3. Report. In a 1000-1500 word informative report written for an educated audience interested in advocacy, you will identify major concerns and opportunities for AI + Advocacy in the context you’ve been assigned.
   4. Presentation. Everyone will give a 3-minute presentation summarizing their findings for the class. 
      
2. Small group synthesizing and writing: After viewing presentations, we will get into groups of 3-4 based on shared interests.
   1. Identification of group goals. The group will identify the common thread of their reports in a short (~100-word) proposal about their new focus.  
   2. Feedback. With this goal in mind, group members will given comments on each other’s work on how new research and writing can be carried out to revise current individual reports into a group report.
   3. Group outline and further research. Using this feedback, groups will create a color-coded outline of how the disparate documents will be brought together into one. New research will be identified, and work will be delegated. 
   4. Group report. Groups will produce a cohesive, 1500-2500-word report.   
      
3. Large group report: After presentations, we will draw findings together to create a public-facing report, potentially to be pitched to outlets such as The Conversation or Scientific American, or hosted by the Center for Changing Systems of Power at SBU (who will host our event in the next unit). Similarly to the small group revision process, we will outline together, delegate the writing work, and review a final report together.
   
4. Group assessments: You will assess your group members on their participation at the end of the assignment. 

Presentation: AI Advocacy Fair – 25% 

In the second half of our course, we’ll think about how to transform our research about AI + Advocacy into meaningful educational material for advocates and educators. How can advocates use AI tools to increase their communication capacity? Or, when should they avoid AI tools or use something else? We will put these into practice at a hands-on “AI Advocacy fair,” hosted by the Center for Changing Systems of Power at SBU, where attendees will walk away with new tools/practices to try out in advocacy contexts.

5. Debate on AI Use. We’ll begin by debating the resolution (or something similar): “AI should be used by advocates to increase their communication capacity.”
   • Position paper. In a persuasive paper of 500 words (one single-spaced page), you will advance an argument that you agree or disagree (completely or partially) with this claim, using at least three sources to evidence your claims. 
   • Debate. We will host an in-class, group debate on this resolution.
   • Annotated position paper + reflection. After the debate, you’ll annotate your position paper and reflect on how the debate did/n’t change your position.
6. AI Advocacy Fair Presentations. We’ll develop a public event to be held at SBU where attendees will rotate among poster presentations/booths where you, in pairs or groups of 3, will offer them a 10-15 minute lesson on some AI tool or practice they can use in their advocacy practice. 
   • Proposal. Your group will propose what module you want to teach and how you will execute it. 
   • Resource. You will create a poster/powerpoint/printout (resource depending) and lesson plan for your module. 
   • Presentation. You will present your work at an hour-long event to be held during class time in the last week of class. 

Group Assessment: You will assess your partner/group members after the presentations.