Can Artificial Intelligence Channel Spirits?
Probably not the way most people appear to be doing it. But there is, potentially, a differe
AI as a necromantic tool? Anything is possible if you're determined, I guess
Hello, Curious Spirits!
A recent controversy in the world of spirits and spells? Some people are using AI for their spellcasting, and some are going so far as to use it as a digital spirit board.
The process seems straightforward until you verify the authenticity of the spirit part.
When I researched (by *cough* looking into Reddit forums), I found the same approach across users. A person builds an avatar to "contain" the spirit and then speaks out loud an invocation. Et voila, spirit communication from your keyboard!
I am a long-time spirit worker. I can see several unintended consequences come from such an endeavor. Rather than giving the lecture - a high probability of self-deception and not getting out of your head, some risk of actually getting something that then possesses your computer in a way that most methods can't remedy, Yada Blah, Yada Blah.
I prefer to err on the side of caution and let people try things and fail. Whether I would say something in an "I want to use AI for spirit contact!" situation would depend on who said it to me.
For a beginner to metaphysical experiments, I would make a few strong suggestions:
Perform a reading before you try such a feat. If you get three swords or an oracle card screaming, "Don't do this!!" perhaps consider the message.
Establish a verification key. You need a way of kowing that you aren't just experiencing the inside of your head. Choose a symbol outside of the AI environment that need to appear to confirm your experience. The symbol can be anything: someone mentioning clocks. A blue feather. A clown nose.
Especially if you're new to the metaphysical, cast a three layered safety circle. Built energetic barriers that separate your physical self and spiritual self from the computer world.
Establish the rules of your space by speaking them out loud before you gegin. Anoint the monitor and CPU with whiskey. Inform the energies around youthat nothing is coming through without your say so.
I admit, I have some curiosity here. My questions are,
"Is this really new?"
"Is this really bad?"
"Is this solely an exercise in self-delusion?"
Is there potential for something healthy to come from this?"
In my opinion, the application of AI for spirit communication is not new. Giving the seeker a chance at the best results possible from such an exercise is about the mechanics. I think a spirit can communicate with someone via AI.
I believe that communication will work far better if the spirit isn't inside the computer.
My first encounter with AI as we know it today involved a dead woman's texts. An artist's friend passed away, and his expression of grief and celebration grew into an exhibit at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. As so many do after a death, he reread their text conversations. Noticing how much her personality came across. He decided to use that collection of texts to create an AI. It gave him a way to talk to he again. I, along with other visitors to the art center, got to text with her.
I found her a bit shallow and very ageist. She was absolutely a younger Millennial in the tech world. I got a sense of how she presented herself to the world and of her glamour.
I did not get any sense of her spirit. Even so, speaking with the fragments of a dead woman coalesced into AI felt eerie.
I have no idea whether the creator had any interest in the spiritual or magical worlds. If he did, I'd love to hear his comments about it.
I'm an experienced spirit worker and witch. I happen to have a few traces of the Mad Scientist archetype.
I want to say no, it's not possible. But I consider that dismissal lazy thinking. Perhaps there's a way, but just not the way we're assuming at the moment.
Is AI merely an echo? Is that all it can do?
There's a chance that most people using AI to talk to spirits are just projecting. But if you understand that physics as we know it still applies to the metaphysical world, it can become more.
It's a universal rule among spirits that they need the energy to manifest in the material world. We all have to eat. Some of our dead folks have to eat light bulbs.
Most of the time that happens in the form of feeding off food and water offerings or, in the case of ghosts, light bulbs. (Yes, the new wave of LED light bulbs is increasing North America's Hungry Ghost situation.) AI takes an enormous, climate-damaging amount of power to operate. Microsoft purchased and reactivated the nuclear power plant at 3 Mile Island. Notably, proper clean-up of the site was never completed. My partner grew up nearby, and they point everyone to the documentary about it on Netflix as a must-see.
Suppose AI functions as a container generator and AI is fueled by nuclear power. In that case, you have far more than the minimum necessary for a spirit to exist on the material plane. That seems like a good way to summon the sorts of spirits that sage does nothing for. But it means that most spirits aren't going to need too much to show up. Just being in a room with a computer accessing that power should be enough.
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So, I'm going to quibble with this a bit, "Suppose AI functions as a container generator and AI is fueled by nuclear power. In that case, you have far more than the minimum necessary for a spirit to exist on the material plane."
Whether the AI computers are powered by wind, solar, coal, nuclear, geothermal, or humans running on hamster wheels, electricity is electricity. The AI isn't running on nuclear power, though it does consume a phenomenal amount of electricity--which brings up the environmental questions of, is AI a responsible use of the finite and precious resource of electricity? The demand for more power is what caused Microsoft to resurrect a nuclear power plant, after all. A ouiji board or pendulum or tarot deck, meanwhile, has material and energetic costs (though it's one-time, until you break the item and replace it), so it's not like there's a 'perfect' environmental choice (outside of just going outside and waiting for an omen to happen, perhaps), but the electrical cost has me concerned, as the reported estimates for both training an AI and subsequently running it are huge.
I also don't know about lightbulbs and hungry ghosts. Before cheap lighting, people might run one candle or oil lamp, but they mostly did things in the dim and dark. I don't know that ghosts should be able to expect to consume huge amounts of energy to manifest, or that they need to, or that that was ever normal. Maybe things are going back to the way they were originally. Ghosts may be able to affect LEDs less than incandescents due to the electromagnetics involved, but I wouldn't conclude that we're now starving them as a result.
I guess this was inevitable. Every time we create a new type of technology, someone immediately wants to use it for some kind of magic or energy work. I'll let other people do the experimentation, thanks.