“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. 

It’s no secret that tarot and astrology are hugely popular online. With nu-spiritual practices on the rise, some younger users are even turning to card readings to help them with self-improvement, dating and even stock market advice. “While astrology has long been a feature of newspapers and other mainstream media, the visuality of Tarot has made it very Internet-friendly,” says Karen Gregory, a sociology professor at the University of Edinburgh. “Tarot websites have been popular online well before Web 2.0 took over. But as platforms such as TikTok have come to dominate, Tarot content has surged and users and creators have sought to maximise the affordances of the platforms.”

For young creators, AI offers a relatively speedy way to imagine new spins on traditional tarot symbolism, as well as creative modes of readings – through AI tarot filters, chatbots and virtual fortune tellers, making it easier than ever to generate clicks, shares and likes (and presumably profit). This plays into a wider trend of AI-generated spirituality on social media platforms – viral TikTok trends such as the Soulmate Filter use machine learning to ‘match’ users with their soulmate, read their chakras, and generate a ‘ring’ on your finger if you have been lucky enough to find your soulmate. 

“ChatGPT could be considered an oracle AI” – Frances Breden 

“The language and belief in manifesting has long been a staple of internet culture and has provided an infrastructure of digital culture beliefs and practices,” adds Gregory. “From a game, to a deck of cards taken up for magical and esoteric practice (where histories of the cards were rewritten to fit the vision of cards as magical), to a therapeutic and creative device, the Tarot is not one thing. It’s an evolving form of hybrid media and it makes sense that Tarot has moved online.” 

While technology and mysticism have always been closely entangled, AI tarot is a particularly alluring answer to uncertain times when it makes sense to search for answers in the unknown. “ChatGPT could be considered an oracle AI,” agrees Frances Breden, Berlin-based artist and tarot researcher. “We approach the AI with a question, and through a series of mysterious operations, the AI taps into the collective unconscious of Internet users who’ve made content related to your question, and then brings you an answer. For me, this process lends itself well to Tarot readings, which are also about tuning into messages from the subconscious and collective subconscious archetypes.” 

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.