An Annotated Reading of 'The Singer of Tales' in the LLM Era
This work provides a cross-disciplinary analysis for researchers in AI and humanities, but it is incremental as it applies an existing theory to a new context without introducing new methods or data.
The paper compares the Parry-Lord oral-formulaic theory of oral narrative poetry with large language model generation, highlighting similarities and differences and discussing societal and AI policy implications.
The Parry-Lord oral-formulaic theory was a breakthrough in understanding how oral narrative poetry is learned, composed, and transmitted by illiterate bards. In this paper, we provide an annotated reading of the mechanism underlying this theory from the lens of large language models (LLMs) and generative artificial intelligence (AI). We point out the the similarities and differences between oral composition and LLM generation, and comment on the implications to society and AI policy.