OratorIA-UA: A Virtual Assistant for the Study, Research and Teaching of Rhetoric

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) in today's world is evident across all fields of knowledge and throughout every phase of educational and research processes. This new reality necessitates a reevaluation of the study, research, and teaching of disciplines with centuries of history, such as rhetoric. It calls for leveraging the capabilities of virtual assistants to manage the vast scientific output they generate and to analyze the constructive and interpretative processes of various types of discourse. In this context, we present in this paper the development of OratorIA-UA, an AI assistant specializing, at least in its early stages, in Rhetorica recepta. This term refers to the body of rhetorical knowledge, techniques, and tools developed over history that pertain to the theoretical and practical study of discourse, which we have inherited, and which form the basis of modern rhetoric. Following initial efforts devoted to training and consulting with experts in configuring AI assistants, we proceeded to the first specialization of our assistant, focusing on articulating and specifying the commands (prompts) necessary for its proper functioning and establishing a relatively broad understanding of the description and explanation of rhetorical operations and many other concepts that constitute the theoretical system of rhetoric. Convinced of the potential of OratorIA-UA, we highlight the usefulness of the assistant for three user profiles—student, teacher and researcher—and discuss on the advantages it offers, the disadvantages it may present and the precautions to be taken when using it.