[Opinion] AI tarot decks

[Morell]

Recently I added to my collection interesting AI generated tarot deck. Made me wonder about AI graphic used in this way as the tarot so far seems interesting. Are AI tarots good to use?

It gives advantages to the creator of the deck in saving the work on building the skill on making art, although it limits to the styles that were already created, it saves time. That's a fact.
Both positive and negative is that author of the deck doesn't imbue the deck so much with their energy. That way the deck is less personal, but also I think it can be much less magical.
Disadvantage of course are AI specific mistakes in created graphic that can end in final card.

So my opinion is that it makes creating tarot deck easier, so that many more people can make it, but it brings loss of value through loosing the hidden knowledge and effort in making a deck.

The deck I got is Erethereal Shadow Work Tarot. I like the style of the cards. Might actually serve good enough for introspection.

 

[Yazata]

Why go through the trouble of buying, shuffling and interpreting the cards then. Just ask the computer what will happen today and obey.

 

[Morell]

Why go through the trouble of buying, shuffling and interpreting the cards then. Just ask the computer what will happen today and obey.

(joke) No thanks. Last time I tried that I drew a Blue Screen of Death.

 

[Lilliphim]

I'm not a fan of AI-made decks due to the ethical issues with art scraping and AI in general. But I don't think the deck will function much differently than any other deck and I don't think it affects the quality of a good reader, ultimately it's up to the reader to extract the messages no matter the visuals or lack of.

Have you done any readings with it yet and if so how are you liking it?

 

[Tiana Silvermoon]

I'm not a fan of AI-made decks due to the ethical issues with art scraping and AI in general. But I don't think the deck will function much differently than any other deck and I don't think it affects the quality of a good reader, ultimately it's up to the reader to extract the messages no matter the visuals or lack of.

I agree. Anything can be magical if you make it so, the only issues with neurogenerations are ethic and legal. As an artist, I'm not a fan of commercial pure AI-art, but if someone were to make a deck just for themselves this way - why not?

 

[Morell]

I'm not a fan of AI-made decks due to the ethical issues with art scraping and AI in general. But I don't think the deck will function much differently than any other deck and I don't think it affects the quality of a good reader, ultimately it's up to the reader to extract the messages no matter the visuals or lack of.

Have you done any readings with it yet and if so how are you liking it?

Actually I do sometimes read with Erethereal tarot. And since it is not done too hastly, it does have something to say when I focus on the cards. When it comes to using of tarot, it is mainly about how compatible is the deck and the reader and this one seems to work good enough for me. At least it's not trash.

Hate to admit that but I do have a deck that was not made by Ai, but is completely useless as tarot as it has zero symbolism within it. It's just a collection of characters on cards with tarot texts. So AI deck is second and the worst is probably way worse than IA than I would expect, honestly.

 

[PinealisGlandia]

Getting close to fifteen years working with tarot and I've yet to find a deck better than the RWS.

 

[Fish man]

AI is not the way. The art doesn't have a souls. Especially in Tarot you need the imprint of creation.

 

[Thebes]

A complicated question I've considered with my own experiments with these tools and occult applications.

Do the ethics of AI imbue themselves in the cards? The probabilistic plagiarism and the environmental cost aren't trivial. I don't know the answer here, but it is something to consider.

What is the role of technology in magic? How divorced from the soul is it? I'd argue anything we make has a bit of us, good or bad, in us. Of course, if I mix up and mash together the work of a million people, what sort of soul would that reflect? Again, I don't have an answer, but it does sound chaotic which might work for some workings.

AI also reflects the person interacting with it. It is a fun house mirror in some ways. What are your thoughts on the person who curated this deck? Would you use something made entirely by their own hand?

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Recently I added to my collection interesting AI generated tarot deck. Made me wonder about AI graphic used in this way as the tarot so far seems interesting. Are AI tarots good to use?

It gives advantages to the creator of the deck in saving the work on building the skill on making art, although it limits to the styles that were already created, it saves time. That's a fact.
Both positive and negative is that author of the deck doesn't imbue the deck so much with their energy. That way the deck is less personal, but also I think it can be much less magical.
Disadvantage of course are AI specific mistakes in created graphic that can end in final card.

So my opinion is that it makes creating tarot deck easier, so that many more people can make it, but it brings loss of value through loosing the hidden knowledge and effort in making a deck.

The deck I got is Erethereal Shadow Work Tarot. I like the style of the cards. Might actually serve good enough for introspection.

They look really cool. Shame it's AI.

 

[Elontir]

Honestly, they're so annoying! I used to love going to Amazon to check out the new arrivals, but now it's full of that stuff! I'm sorry, but I find them repulsive and in bad taste.

Edit: On the other hand, the AI was trained using other people's art, and those people don't receive a single penny for it! So they disgust me even more, sorry if that sounds aggressive.

 

[StoatCatcher]

Not for me. Other people in the thread gave very good reasons as to why that I agree with so I won't repeat them.

But for me the biggest aspect is that, even if you suck at it initially, creating your own deck with normal means will always result in a deeper connection with it and it's meaning. Even if you can only do a pips only or Marseilles style deck with a simpler artstyle I still think the end result will be magically better.

 

[freakstarsh]

beatiful deck

 

[Amadeus]

Ai could create something nice looking sure. If you feed in perfect prompts you could get what you desire. After a lot of messing around you'd probably end up with the whole deck.

I've created lots of random images and sometimes the outcomes were great looking. I drew saints, angels, demons, random objects with different generators. Experimented, tested, lots of random images.

Ai tarot, I don't know, It's not really for me though. Maybe my opinion will change some day, who knows.

I prefer the widely used traditional decks like the RWT.

I suppose we could make some WF themed deck, just for fun create some images.

Post automatically merged: Mar 20, 2026

Tested it a bit, random experiments.

https://imgur.com/a/RtLBdJI

Post automatically merged: Mar 20, 2026

I have to say AI has improved a lot since the last time I made such images.

 

[MudnMoonlux]

I'm no way near versed in tarot hence this : The actual pics don't mean anything in and of themselves??

 

[PinealisGlandia]

I'm no way near versed in tarot hence this : The actual pics don't mean anything in and of themselves??

In the Rider-Waite tarot, every little detail in the pictures has some sort of meaning, as long as you know it. Whether it's the salamander pattern on the knight of wands' tabard or the lack of green on The Emperor, it all means something. That's a large part of why I push people away from other tarot decks. No one besides Rider-Waite-Smith has put in the level of effort in making a tarot deck, so they're all pale imitations of the real thing. I have never (and doubt I will ever) see a tarot deck that packs as much information into each card as the RWS.

 

[Thebes]

In the Rider-Waite tarot, every little detail in the pictures has some sort of meaning, as long as you know it. Whether it's the salamander pattern on the knight of wands' tabard or the lack of green on The Emperor, it all means something. That's a large part of why I push people away from other tarot decks. No one besides Rider-Waite-Smith has put in the level of effort in making a tarot deck, so they're all pale imitations of the real thing. I have never (and doubt I will ever) see a tarot deck that packs as much information into each card as the RWS.

That is an interesting point of view. I'm not going to argue exactly since obviously Rider-Waite is a pillar of Tarot, and also, the pale imitators do exist. Sadly AI does make these faster than a human artist because they can steal from every scraped Tarot image. However, what about decks like Thoth which change the details and perhaps have details that go off in other directions? Where do they fit into this view?

I've only used RWS and those I would argue were based on it, so I don't really have a horse in this race. Feel free not to answer.

 

[rice candy]

Ai could create something nice looking sure. If you feed in perfect prompts you could get what you desire. After a lot of messing around you'd probably end up with the whole deck.

I've created lots of random images and sometimes the outcomes were great looking. I drew saints, angels, demons, random objects with different generators. Experimented, tested, lots of random images.

Ai tarot, I don't know, It's not really for me though. Maybe my opinion will change some day, who knows.

I prefer the widely used traditional decks like the RWT.

I suppose we could make some WF themed deck, just for fun create some images.

Post automatically merged: Mar 20, 2026

Tested it a bit, random experiments.

https://imgur.com/a/RtLBdJI

Post automatically merged: Mar 20, 2026

I have to say AI has improved a lot since the last time I made such images.

So much for AI improvement... the character in the photo has six fingers!

I've digitally drawn my current oracle deck from scratch (not tarot, but still). As both a creator and diviner, there's an extra layer of energy added into the art by the artist. The AI "art" images don't have the same feeling and energy as the human soul. But if images don't matter to the individual, then it won't matter how the tool is made.

 

[Amadeus]

So much for AI improvement... the character in the photo has six fingers!

There are mistakes but the overall compared to what it was years ago, like day and night. I made a lot of images over there for random purposes and things were awful. These days it seems to get a lot more right. Less errors. There will occasionally be too many fingers. I did not really check these images through 100%, quickly made them and added here.

I remember trying to write nicknames and just random words with bing copilot ai and everything looked disastrous It was not even possible to write tarot card names on them without some kind of an error in font. Writing Happy Birthday resulted in maybe Hppy birrrday, where the PP letters were cut into pieces.

 

[PinealisGlandia]

That is an interesting point of view. I'm not going to argue exactly since obviously Rider-Waite is a pillar of Tarot, and also, the pale imitators do exist. Sadly AI does make these faster than a human artist because they can steal from every scraped Tarot image. However, what about decks like Thoth which change the details and perhaps have details that go off in other directions? Where do they fit into this view?

I've only used RWS and those I would argue were based on it, so I don't really have a horse in this race. Feel free not to answer.

The deck of Thoth is probably the second place tarot deck after RWS, but there's quite a bit of margin between the two. Just take the six of coins for example, and compare the

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. I hope we agree on which of them is more clear/intuitive in its meaning. I do like how Thoth flips the pages with princesses, it's a good way to jog one out of the "this court card represents this type of person" thinking, but overall it's a curiosity. That's kinda the category I put all non-RWS sets into, they're curiosities to see how the artist interpretted each card themes, but they're all going to push a focus in a way the RWS avoids. RWS card art is cluttered until you learn most of the symbolism, then it allows your intuition to guide your focus rather than the card art. Thoth does a bit of that too, but it does it almost entirely through esoteric symbolism. RWS has esoteric symbolism in it too, but some of it's very straightforward (like the six of coins art earlier depicting charity and equality).

Thoth is still worth studying, it teaches some aspects of tarot better than the RWS. By that I mean the numerological and planetary/alchemical aspects of the tarot. But I don't think it's really worth using. My .