Rhetorical XAI: Explaining AI's Benefits as well as its Use via Rhetorical Design
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arXiv
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| Autores principales: | , , |
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| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866912844791939072 |
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| author | Liu, Houjiang Su, Yiheng Lease, Matthew |
| author_facet | Liu, Houjiang Su, Yiheng Lease, Matthew |
| contents | We explore potential benefits of incorporating Rhetorical Design into the design of Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) systems. While XAI is traditionally framed around explaining individual predictions or overall system behavior, explanations may also function as rhetorical arguments that shape how users evaluate a system's usefulness and credibility, and how they develop appropriate trust for adoption. In real-world, in-situ interactions, explanations can thus produce experiential and affective rhetorical effects that are not fully captured by traditional XAI design goals that focus primarily on how AI works. To address this gap, we propose Rhetorical XAI, which bridges two explanatory goals: how AI works and why AI merits use. Rhetorical XAI comprises three appeals in explanation design: logos, which aligns technical logic with human reasoning through visual and textual abstractions; ethos, which establishes contextual credibility based on the explanation source and its appropriateness to the decision task; and pathos, which engages user emotionally by framing explanations around their motivations, expectations, or situated needs during interaction. We conduct a narrative review synthesizing design strategies from prior XAI work aligned with these three rhetorical appeals, highlighting both opportunities and challenges of integrating rhetorical design into XAI. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_09862 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Rhetorical XAI: Explaining AI's Benefits as well as its Use via Rhetorical Design Liu, Houjiang Su, Yiheng Lease, Matthew Human-Computer Interaction Computers and Society We explore potential benefits of incorporating Rhetorical Design into the design of Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) systems. While XAI is traditionally framed around explaining individual predictions or overall system behavior, explanations may also function as rhetorical arguments that shape how users evaluate a system's usefulness and credibility, and how they develop appropriate trust for adoption. In real-world, in-situ interactions, explanations can thus produce experiential and affective rhetorical effects that are not fully captured by traditional XAI design goals that focus primarily on how AI works. To address this gap, we propose Rhetorical XAI, which bridges two explanatory goals: how AI works and why AI merits use. Rhetorical XAI comprises three appeals in explanation design: logos, which aligns technical logic with human reasoning through visual and textual abstractions; ethos, which establishes contextual credibility based on the explanation source and its appropriateness to the decision task; and pathos, which engages user emotionally by framing explanations around their motivations, expectations, or situated needs during interaction. We conduct a narrative review synthesizing design strategies from prior XAI work aligned with these three rhetorical appeals, highlighting both opportunities and challenges of integrating rhetorical design into XAI. |
| title | Rhetorical XAI: Explaining AI's Benefits as well as its Use via Rhetorical Design |
| topic | Human-Computer Interaction Computers and Society |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.09862 |