Analyzing Purpose

Determining the Purpose of My Public Argument

In this blog entry, I will respond to the questions on purpose as posed in Writing Public Lives in order to gain a better understanding of how I want to construct my public debate and what message I want it to drive. In doing so, I will clearly see what I want to accomplish with my argument.

godserv, "Got Purpose? - Sermon Title" 13 April 2010 via flickr.com.
Attribution Noncommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0) License.

1. I think that my public argument will focus on the artistic potential of artificial intelligence as a future technology. By this I mean that I want to discuss not the practical applications of AI to fields like medicine or the auto industry, but the potential for AI to become a new medium for artists. I will likely how to frame my article in current evidence of art embracing new media such as video games and robotics (they exist!), and extrapolate my argument from there to include AI as another medium that artists will get to use and create with in the future. What I want my audience to feel, then, is an excitement; I want my readers to experience a unique and new perspective on the controversy, while also having their imaginations engaged by the potential artworks that lie ahead of us with AI technology (I may really need to appeal to visuals and hypothetical experiences, like an AI personality museum!).

2.
Plausible Actions/Reactions to Reading My Argument: Readers may feel/act/react...

• Excited for AI technology
• A change in their apprehension over AI research and development to anticipation
• Adopt my perspective and consider new technologies for both scientific and artistic value
• Spread my thoughts to others
• Appreciate other pro-AI arguments more, with this perspective supporting them somewhat
• ALTERNATIVELY, readers may reject my views if they don't think artistic value matches or compares at all to other applications of AI such as to the world economy (job automation, for example) that they are concerned about

Not Plausible Reactions to Reading My Argument: Readers will not likely feel/act/react...

• Depressed over the technology - my argument will either excite or anger, I feel
• Reconsider guideline strictness over AI research and development, as my argument will be more focused on how people will use the technology and not how it will be developed

3. Results from plausible effects (in order)...

• Readers excited for AI technology will likely become advocates for its development and may even argue for it publicly
• Eased fears in readers will allow them to appreciate the positive potential of the technology
• Readers who now consider technologies for scientific and artistic value may have a totally new outlook both on new and existing technologies
• Readers that spread my thoughts/argument to others will propagate more plausible reactions
• Readers that identify more with pro-AI arguments may become more accepting of non-artistically oriented arguments as they will have "entered" the pro-AI viewpoint through my argument, but may encounter and embrace other arguments advocating for the technology
• Readers who reject my argument may use it as ammunition to claim that excitement over AI technology is misguided and not focused on the topics that they care about

4. People who are most likely to adopt my viewpoint as described in my public argument will be people who can appreciate a fuller perspective of technological impacts on society, and artists. I imagine that people who may be frustrated with the approaches current pro-AI arguments are taking might identify with my argument because it is so different and (humbly) unique, and thus they might resonate well with it given that other methods of arguing have not reached them. Additionally, artists who might be apprehensive about science and technology may not appreciate the larger picture of AI's impact as it could become a new artistic medium, and thus those people might become AI advocates themselves as they could identify with my argument specifically, which lies among the various pro-AI arguments out there.