Review of Augmentation Technologies and Artificial Intelligence in Technical Communication: Designing Ethical Futures

Abstract

Are you aware of AlterEgo, a wearable device that enhances a user’s cognitive abilities by enabling a silent internal dialogue with an AI agent? While still a research prototype, AlterEgo is one of the many technologies readers will discover through Augmentation Technologies and Artificial Intelligence in Technical Communication: Designing Ethical Futures by Ann Hill Duin and Isabel Pedersen. However, this book’s focus is not only on augmentation technologies, defined as technologies which modify human capability and productivity through cognitive, physical, sensory, and/or emotional enhancement, but also the role that the field of technical and professional communication (TPC) will play in the design, adoption, and adaptation of these technologies. As such, Duin and Pedersen take a rhetorical approach to the topic, seeking to communicate the ways in which augmentation technologies “mediate knowledge, values, and action in professional and personal contexts” (p. 16).