This paper introduces the original term Noetic Bond (Costello, 2025) to describe the unconscious recognition of shared human consciousness that underpins audience engagement in screenwriting.
Drawing on rhetorical theory (Booth, 1961), narrative empathy (Keen, 2007), intentionality (Dennett, 1987), and dialogic linguistics (Bakhtin, 1981), the paper proposes that the screenwriter’s presence forms an essential human bridge between storyteller and audience, a bond that collapses when authorship becomes artificial. The Noetic Bond framework situates screenwriting within a philosophical and rhetorical understanding of authorship, arguing that when stories are AI-generated, this bond dissolves, severing the audience’s moral and emotional connection to the film.