Behavioral similarities in the way chatbots and oral poets perform

Kush R. Varshney, An Annotated Reading of ‘The Singer of Tales’ in the LLM Era, https://arxiv.org/html/2502.05148v1 Feb. 2025.

Abstract. 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.

Varshney develops his argument by interlacing passages from Albert Lord's The Singer of Tales with comments on LLMs. This is a very interesting way of reviewing your understanding of LLMs in relation to a specialized kind human language performance.

You might want to consider two of my blog posts:

GPT-3, the phrasal lexicon, Parry/Lord, and the Homeric epics, July 16, 2022.

In some ways, some contexts, LLMs may provide a useful model for human language, March 24, 2026.

In this more recent post I discuss empirical evidence about human memory for F.C. Bartlett's classic book, Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (1932), David C. Rubin, Memory in Oral Traditions: The Cognitive Psychology of Epic, Ballads, and Counting-out Rhymes (Oxford 1995).