“If you’re seeing this video, this message is for you.”
The AI-generated woman who appears on my FYP hunches towards the screen, her face illuminated by a virtual tealight. “Tomorrow night you will receive a large sum of money from unexpected sources you never even suspected,” she says, in a robotic drawl. “When you hear this sound, use it immediately. Karma exists and tomorrow night there will be a significant change in your life.”
In the past few months, there have been countless examples of videos like this showing up on my feed, promising life-changing blessings and financial miracles if only I write ‘yes’ in the comments and ‘share this video with my loved ones’.
The app AI Tarot lets users choose from a number of settings such as ‘card of the day’, ‘wheel of fortune’, or live chat settings to receive a personalised reading straight from the machine itself. There’s a selection of AI tarot readers to speak to – you can choose between a cloaked figure named Tarouk or upgrade your membership to unlock other characters such as a smiling older woman called Madame Serafina or Emilia, a ‘gothic tarologist with a mystical outlook’. Over on Chat GPT, a number of ‘taro mystic’ chatbots give users the option to enter tarot-specific prompts to receive bespoke readings based on the Major Arcana. Here you can ask the machine to pull out cards and interpret them in a similar exchange to a traditional tarot reading, the hidden inner workings of the AI drawing divine parallels to the mysteries of the spiritual realm.
While divination tools can certainly be useful for self-reflection, turning to an AI oracle in times of mass disarray might have its downsides. The results of any generative AI are always going to be biased, pulled from limited datasets created by tech companies, which suggests the ghosts in the machine might not have our best intentions at heart. “In some ways you’re put into a spiritual relationship with all the users whose data is scraped to generate AI content, as well as the engineers, venture capitalists, or server workers who make the reading possible,” says Breden. “Much of the AI tarot readings I’ve seen on my FYP have an AI-generated older woman with a crystal ball, a veil, and bangle jewellery. AI Tarot seems to be reproducing a long history of Orientalism in magic.”
Just as with most online spirituality, there’s also the risk of getting scammed – think products like snake oil or dark feminine subliminal videos. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t encounter a bunch of TikTok accounts selling personalised AI reading packages, or videos promising ways that I can ‘become a billionaire within the next two weeks’. So, while celestial promises of prosperity might sound enticing, don’t let the machine control your destiny.
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- Source of information and images “dazeddigital“
