Tarot & Artificial Intelligence

the good, the bad and the indifferent

In December of 2021, I downloaded an app called WOMBO and used it to generate some tarot cards.

AI generated art was still a novelty at the time. In fact, when I first shared this image on my Instagram Stories almost three years ago, many people replied to me saying they’d never seen AI tarot art before.

Ah, we were such sweet summer children back then, weren’t we?

I don’t need to tell you that since then the topic has been at the forefront of everyone’s minds, not just in the art and tarot worlds, but everywhere. In every industry. In every corner of humanity. You can’t escape hearing about it. In fact, I’m kind of tired of hearing about it, and don’t even really want to talk about it. But…

Not long ago I was lurking on threads (a treacherous habit) and a post came up referring to some drama between two people I don’t know. Tarot Reader A declared they were unfollowing Tarot Reader B because Tarot Reader B admitted to using ChatGPT to conduct personal readings. The responses were mostly in support of Tarot Reader A and throwing shade towards Tarot Reader B.

So while AI has been a hot topic for a while, it feels more and more like we’re reaching the point where you have to declare your stance on this. Siiiiigh.

Declaring my stance on AI & Tarot

The truth is, I don’t have a simple stance on this, at least not yet. Overall my feelings on AI lean towards the negative side, but not to the extent that I would police someone else for experimenting with it. The aforementioned interaction on threads actually really rubbed me the wrong way. These are new, wild and mind-blowing tool. Of course people are going to be curious and want to see how it fits into their tarot practice.

It’s interesting that some of the same folks who shout from the rooftops that there are no rules in tarot will turn around and shun you from the group for entering a prompt into ChatGPT.

I think we can critique AI tools/models/programs without demonizing the actual human beings experimenting with them? For example, one of the main criticisms of AI is the amount of energy, water, electricity it takes to maintain these systems; and how this can accelerate climate change and other environmental issues. This is a valid concern and very much worth talking about.

But the same concern applies to, I dunno…buying fast fashion, flying on airplanes (or riding in cars for that matter), eating factory farmed meat, and so on. I am concerned about all of these things, yet I would never get on threads and blast an individual person for participating in them.

Since the fateful day I used AI to engineer the imagery above, my personal use of AI has been pretty limited. I have never used AI to interpret a spread or do any type of tarot reading. I haven’t messed around with making any further imagery. Haven’t used it in my writing at all, ever.

I HAVE used ChatGPT to generate ideas for a tarot related project I was working on - mostly because I wanted to see how it would relate to the ideas I’d already generated in my own brain. I’ve also asked it some questions about tarot history, but that was more as an experiment to see if it would answer correctly. And, unrelated, but I have also used it to generate some silly little poems about my pets.

I know tarot readers (who I consider to be ethical and level-headed people) who regularly use AI to generate spread ideas, suggest alternate interpretations, create tarot inspired journaling prompts and more. If that serves you, you do you!

When I consider why *I* haven’t utilized AI more in my tarot practice, the typical critiques do apply. I don’t like the environmental implications, I don’t like the pilfering of intellectual property, yadda yadda yadda. But more than that, I’ve come to realize AI just doesn’t really align with why I want to use tarot to begin with.

In general, I’m not interested in telling anyone else what is right or wrong. I do enjoy sharing MY thought process from time to time on why I think something is right or wrong, but opinions are like assholes, as they say. You’re an adult (presumably) and possess your own unique human intelligence (presumably, unless you are a bot scraping my writing to feed AI models, in which case, SCRAM!). Do as you will.

Why do I use tarot?

This is the deeper question at work here, I think. Why you use tarot will have a lot of influence over whether or not AI has any place in your practice. Here are some of the first things that come to mind when I consider why I use tarot.

To tap into ALL aspects of my intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence models contain knowledge, more knowledge than any human brain could ever possibly hold or access. Cool. But this is only one form of intelligence. For me, reading tarot is about more than just dredging up knowledge. It’s about the sensations in my body when I see a card. It’s about the ever-shifting state of my brain chemistry and how that reacts to a spread. It’s about the current fluctuations of my emotional landscape and how that emanates as I gaze at an image.

To my assessment, these are uniquely human types of intelligence. One of the reasons I love tarot is that it reminds me how special it is to be a human being! Through a lovely synchronicity, as I was writing this piece I came across a post Benebell Wen recently shared on social media where she said:

“Do you have a skill that AI cannot replicate? Such as emotional intelligence, empathy, nunchi 눈치. Original ideation, truly novel ideas, creative leaps that sidestep logic and rationalism. All that leans into the intuitive, feeling, and sensory. Many fear what AI means for their jobs. But the mystic who is prepared to adapt will be fine.”

And while we’re mentioning her, she’s shared many astute, thorough and thought-provoking observations on AI over the years (with much more depth and breadth than I’m capable of) and you should definitely check out her posts if you haven’t already.

A side note… another phenomenon I’ve observed when I use AI tools myself is I find myself feeling some type of pride or ownership over the things I used AI to generate. Like, that Star image above. I like it! I think it’s pretty! It gives me a nice feeling. And yes, at the time the AI spat it out I felt proud. Even though I didn’t actually do anything? It’s not really my creation? I just entered a prompt into a computer.

I’m weary of AI giving me a false sense that I’m being creative or that I’ve produced something meaningful. I’ve tried to remain fairly neutral here but one thing that gives me the ick big time is using AI in my writing. Don’t get it twisted, I’m not shitting on people who use AI for editing or proofreading or whatever.

Writing is hard. Excruciating sometimes. But it gives me a feeling like nothing else does. I could have had AI write this entire damn post for me and it probably would have been more cohesive. But that goes against the entire role writing serves in my life. Writing is self-expression and catharsis. I know this is how many visual artists feel about image-generating AI.

To connect with other humans

It delights me to see how an occultist 100 years ago interpreted a card compared to how someone I follow on social media interprets a card today. It is a joy to try tarot spreads that other people thoughtfully crafted. It’s wonderful to look at an image and know an actual artist put effort and intention into its creation. It’s an honor to go to another reader and have them pull cards for me and share a message shaped by their individual energy.

If I’m talking to another reader about a card and they see it in a different way than I do, I can ask them, why? Did you read that interpretation in a certain book, or is there something about the imagery that sparked it for you, or just a random intuitive ping, or…? And they can answer, with specificity.

Whereas if I’m ‘talking’ to ChatGPT there’s a lot more shadiness about sources. As research for this post, I asked it for an interpretation of the Magician from the Wild Unknown Tarot. As many of you know, some years ago I wrote a series of blog posts sharing my personal interpretations on this deck and at their peak those posts were receiving 70,000+ hits per month. Interestingly, the response AI generated shared quite a few similarities with my post. Huh. I wonder why.

I then asked it to share sources for its interpretation. It gave me an answer which to its credit did list a few specific sources (the official Wild Unknown guidebook and Waite’s Pictorial Key to the Tarot) and also included a vague allusion to sourcing from “modern tarot readers and practitioners.” Wait…is that…me? Probably, but the world will never know. And perhaps the next generation of tarot readers learning with this deck will default to AI instead of finding my website and never know that my ideas shaped the results AI churns out.

To expand my consciousness & imagination

My favorite thing about tarot is when the messages it inspires come from somewhere deep, weird and unfathomable within my own psyche. I guess one could argue that messages generated by AI also come from somewhere weird and unfathomable. But it hits different, you know?

I’m a mystic at heart, and I love tarot the most when it facilitates a connection to the mysteries of Being. I’ve always been less about wanting a specific answer from tarot and more about seeking a shift in consciousness from tarot.

Frankly, there’s already enough technology in my life that in theory could create more space for imagination but in reality serves as a distraction, a downer or a temporary dopamine hit. I’m suspicious that AI is just the newest (and perhaps biggest) technological innovation to fit into this category.

The vibe AI gives me is 7 of Cups-y. Like ‘ooh, wow, bewildering! So many possibilities! Some very bad and scary but some very cool!’ And that’s not really the vibe I want to be in for my tarot practice or for my life. I’m more about being in the vibe of the Magician, or the High Priestess.

Hopefully I’ve made it clear that when it comes to my little nook of tarot, I’m not interested in telling anyone else what to do. But if you’re a fellow tarot reader grappling with this question I do think there’s value inquiring why you use tarot (and your answers might be very different than mine) and considering how AI tools fit in, or don’t fit in, with your answers.

Accepting the inevitable

It’s likely that no matter how my personal thoughts and feelings on AI evolve, it isn’t going anywhere. It’s only going to get more powerful and infiltrate more and more of our daily lives.

I have a pattern of being critical of new technology. I was one of the last people I knew to get a smart phone. I spent many years wishing smart phones would go away before I caved and got one. Before I joined the cult, I remember being at dinner with a group of friends and looking around and everyone at the table was in their own little world looking at their phone. I swore that would never be me, but now I’m just another person at the table entranced by their silly little screen. I don’t like this, and I do still sometimes fantasize about throwing my phone into a volcano, but I haven’t done that yet.

When it comes to AI, I suppose I’m trying to be, as Benebell put it, a “mystic who is prepared to adapt.” For now, my version of adapting looks like keeping a safe distance from AI, but not wasting too much energy raging against it.

That’s all for now,

Carrie