Can ChatGPT teach you to read tarot?

How reliable is ChatGPT when it comes to learning tarot?

“Is it OK to use ChatGPT to learn tarot? I see a lot of backlash against it, but it’s friendlier than social media.”

What a statement. Thank you to Kirsty for asking me this, and allowing me to share your question on my blog.

I’ve written about the intersection between tarot and A.I. before. It’s something I’ve been following since generative A.I. became mainstream several years ago, and tarot artists started to experiment with it to design new tarot decks.

I’ve tried to stay open to it as best as I can, though I must admit that I am an analogue girl at heart: I don’t have Spotify and still buy vinyl and CDs. Most of my clothing is vintage or second-hand. While I rely on technology to share my work and teach my classes, I’ve always been a slow adopter to new gadgets. And if I had my way, I’d rather ditch my smartphone altogether.

So my personal preference always leans towards a life with less digital dependence than more. I think we’re already overstimulated and oversaturated as it is. But I also acknowledge that I can’t hate on this stuff altogether: The internet has united so many of us, which is incredible.

And A.I. has a lot of different uses, and it’s been powering our online newsletters and social media for years already. When people are concerned with A.I. they often mean generative tools like ChatGPT.

A couple of years ago, I strongly considered removing my tarot blogs from my website to prevent them from being used to train ChatGPT. Because that’s the unfortunate reality of these types of tools:

They are like super-powered search engines that scrape the internet for relevant content. Everything about tarot, astrology, and other esoteric tools that ChatGPT offers has been taken from someone like me.

So I have ethical issues in regards to these tools, as they have no regard to intellectual property. (Not to mention the environmental impacts of it all, but that’s a whole other discussion.)

I didn’t remove my blogs because I want them to be available to people who need them. And I hope I can keep it that way.

Of course, copyright infringement happened long before ChatGPT. Some of my peers in the tarot world have had their websites copied word for word by new readers eager to start businesses. That’s also always a concern, but I’ve never worried too much about copycats.

Why? Because I can explain why I’m saying what I’m saying.

When you copy someone else’s work, you’re taking a finished product – my blogs, my newsletters, even my classes are the endpoints of a longer process. Everything I share about tarot is the tipping point of years’ worth of personal study and hands-on experience.

Copycats can’t replicate my real-life experience of reading tarot for thousands of clients. They can’t get in my head to understand how working on psychic hotlines shaped my views on divination. They can’t access the point of views that I’ve taken from the teachers I’ve had, or the books I’ve read.

ChatGPT is similar. It might feel like a helpful starting point for someone who is learning tarot, but it’s not the same as having a living, breathing human being to connect with. It doesn’t have real-life experience reading tarot the way we do.

And there is oversight to the information it offers: It’s not unheard of for ChatGPT to spit out inaccurate answers.

My bigger concern with questions like Kirsty’s is that people are turning to ChatGPT for tarot advice because they feel unwelcome in human-led spaces.

That is a bigger issue. Because if we want new readers to embrace the tradition of tarot reading, and if we want tarot to continue to grow, then we need to mindful about the spaces we create, and the relationships we foster.

There can be many gateways into tarot. For some people, it will A.I. For others, TikTok. For someone else, it will be a book or a dream or a synchronicity.

I can’t say that one introduction to tarot is better than another.

When I wanted to learn to read cards, the internet wasn’t a thing yet, and the resources I had available to me were limited. What did I know about quality control then?

I didn’t. Beginners don’t know a good resource from a bad one yet because they don’t know have anything to compare it to.

If someone is really committed to learning tarot, I always trust that they will explore other ways of connecting with it eventually. Like I said, ChatGPT might a starting point, but it’s just scratching the surface of what’s out there.

Eventually, your learning will deepen when you seek out human-led resources about tarot, be it through books, blogs, YouTube videos, classes, and more.

There are a lot of things that humans can teach about tarot that ChatGPT can’t. Five years ago, I was saying the same things about learning tarot through TikTok and Instagram.

Either way, it’s good to diversify your learning and take things offline sometimes, or find a few trusted voices in the tarot world that you can reliably tune into.

Hope this helps.

Until next time,

Liz

Categories: : learn tarot