It is well-known that there is growing hype and fear around generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs), and their impact on education, public sectors, and creative industries, to name a few. The way in which we approach the use of these technologies now may influence their advancements for future generations.

For the past year, Sophie Whittle has been working on the C21 Editions project, where the team assessed machine-assisted methods for the development of a prototype teaching edition of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale from The Canterbury Tales. Whittle’s work also explored whether generative AI recognised the tale’s position within a complex textual tradition, its literary criticisms, linguistic variation through time, and more specifically, whether it draws on marginalised communities’ stories within a larger ‘canonical’ text. In a virtual talk on Dec. 11 at 5:00 PM GMT, Whittle will present her reflections when challenging LLMs’ translation, annotation and ‘interpretation’ of the text.

The team’s research draws on the insights of the students, lecturers, researchers and editors they interviewed at various stages of the project. Whittle also builds on the large body of research within contemporary Chaucerian discussion, queer and intersectional approaches to the Tales, and recent research arising from the Critical AI journal at Rutgers, to support the identified disparities between generative AI outputs and long-standing editorial practices. By combining these approaches, Whittle will highlight the benefits and limitations of including LLMs within the framework of a pedagogical edition.

During this talk, Whittle also invites the audience to share the challenges they have faced as teachers, researchers, students, and users, in a digital age that demands our attention to, and awareness of, these technological developments, so we can continue an interdisciplinary dialogue around its growing consequences for educational contexts.

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