[Opinion] AI tarot decks

[borbponderer]

I've never used an AI generated deck, but I've used generative AI as an oracle of sorts. Dalle-2 was especially good for that as the outputs could be so weird and random. It was like having a secondary visual cortex.

Been playing with Gemini recently which has a very different character. It's less weird and less random. I suspect with anything like this the results are only as good as the practitioner.

For me the biggest ethical sticking points with AI are the environmental costs, and the way it's being weaponised is altogether terrifying. But it's out there now and part of the world now, so...

 

[Grigorij]

I mean, I think technically you can just take a bunch of cards and draw the names/numbers of the arcana and it would work. But AI art tends to be ugly

 

[Nightgrowler]

As a lifetime artist which dedicated almost 7 years of my life to making a Tarot deck I can say that all AI can do for you in production of the Tarot deck is basically robbery of the whole experience. Making your own deck is a journey of initiation and attempts to rush it can ruin you or said initiation. There is no way I could come up with such synchronicity stacks if all the work would be done for me by an AI. And utilizing such tools is a clear mark of Western psyche which is all about productivity and matching numbers.
Yves Klein Quote: “My paintings are only the ashes of my art.”
This quite clearly illustrates the nature of the art itself and how AI has nothing to do with it.
AI will not give you the magick behind the process of making one's own Tarot deck which btw was part on initiation process in the Order of the Golden Dawn and several others.

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[Morell]

As a lifetime artist which dedicated almost 7 years of my life to making a Tarot deck I can say that all AI can do for you in production of the Tarot deck is basically robbery of the whole experience. Making your own deck is a journey of initiation and attempts to rush it can ruin you or said initiation. There is no way I could come up with such synchronicity stacks if all the work would be done for me by an AI. And utilizing such tools is a clear mark of Western psyche which is all about productivity and matching numbers.
Yves Klein Quote: “My paintings are only the ashes of my art.”
This quite clearly illustrates the nature of the art itself and how AI has nothing to do with it.
AI will not give you the magick behind the process of making one's own Tarot deck which btw was part on initiation process in the Order of the Golden Dawn and several others.

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That's sone stunning work. Love your mention of initiatory process. Definitely part of it.

 

[diana_i_gusarova]

I think that in any kind of artistic creation (and especially related to esotericism), AI can only be a tool of the human creator, but not the creator.

 

[Thebes]

Yves Klein Quote: “My paintings are only the ashes of my art.”

I love this quote and your work. Extending the metaphor, this does make AI art the probabilistic ashes of other people's work.

Hearing from others who have made decks, it is intensely personal. Losing the process of creation by turning it over to an algorithm is probably taking something from us.

 

[Nightgrowler]

Losing the process of creation by turning it over to an algorithm is probably taking something from us.

I would say it takes everything. Some symbols you can see only when the work is finished, and your subconscious put them there, some are result of a sudden insight (as an example I had one when I decided to draw scepter of the Emperor with an Aries glyph on the top of it and recognized in its geometry a double sided fishing hook which is a meaning of the letter Tzaddi - one of the major changes Crowley did in Thoth Tarot is attributing Tzaddi to the Emperor due to the line from the Book of the Law “All these old letters of my Book are aright; but [Tzaddi] is not the Star.”, the way it “clicked” is inexpressible experience and whole journey of making one’s deck is full of such moments. AI generation is full of random hallucinations and good luck to make just right specific details when you have something concrete in mind. I had need to work on specific project of making corporate comics with ai generated images and for me it is much easier to draw most of specific details by myself than negotiate with an AI for hours about minor things which is stubbornly gets wrong.

 

[Siddha]

AI-generated tarot decks are a huge topic of debate IMO, and honestly, the thread highlights the exact reasons why people are so divided. On one hand, you have the practical side: AI makes deck creation accessible to anyone who has a vision but lacks traditional art skills, and it can result in some visually stunning styles like the Erethereal Shadow Work Tarot mentioned. On the other hand, the community brings up some massive downsides that are hard to ignore i.e. The Missing Soul!

Many readers feel that tarot relies on the energy and intention a human artist pours into the creation process. AI just mashes together existing data. Traditional decks like the Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) have meaning packed into every single tiny detail. AI often misses this hidden knowledge, creating pretty pictures that lack actual esoteric depth—or worse, giving a character six fingers. Further on, the data scraping used to train these models without compensating original artists leaves a bad taste in many people's mouths.

Ultimately, if a deck works for your personal introspection and you connect with the imagery, it has value to you. But for deeply intuitive readings, a human-crafted deck still seems to hold the upper hand for most seasoned readers.

Personally speaking: if an AI generated Deck "speaks" to my inner world, hell yeahh I'd use it without blinking an eye!

 

[Nightgrowler]

AI just mashes together existing data.

If this would be the case it wouldn't be that bad, although still wouldn't be enough. Problem with AI is the fact that it is constantly hallucinating even when you give it clear directions and especially if you need some particular details to be made with consistency and precision. I had a need in my working life to confront a task to make a specific set of graphics with an AI and for me personally it is much easier, faster and better to draw a thing from scratch than to make an AI to do with enough precision so that result would be adequate.

More than this, when artist makes a deck, the Tarot as an entity is in active conversation with an artist and lots of revelations are coming from the process, just take a look to Book of Thoth and correspondence between Lady Frieda Harris and Aleister Crowley. The willingness to go forth with AI decks and to neglect a human made Tarot makes me really sad in terms of witnessing the division between artists and people who approach art from consumer perspective. I recently had a discussion with a person which stated that if image looks good, it doesn't really matter for them how or by whom it was made. Which is like.. quite opposite to the contemplation of the Arts throughout the history. Lots of iconic artworks are relatively equal to many of their contemporaries but are special because of the time, place, circumstances and people involved in their story. Nowadays people are so used to high quality free images on the internet that no one really cares what does an artist do in order to conjure The Image.

 

[Morell]

Personally speaking: if an AI generated Deck "speaks" to my inner world, hell yeahh I'd use it without blinking an eye!

I thought so too, but no. I have few such decks and although they can be even spiritually attractive, when you go deeper into them, you realize that it was a mistake. I thought I have awesome deck till I saw a horse having 5 legs, or a gril with hands blending with her body. No.

 

[Nightgrowler]

I thought I have awesome deck till I saw a horse having 5 legs, or a gril with hands blending with her body. No.

Yep. Worst part is the fact that AI did not care at all. It had zero emotional impact behind the task, not even boredom, or adding extra fingers as the act of trickstery. It was just indifferent filling of the digital canvas pixel by pixel. And as a lifetime artist I can assure you the state one is in while drawing influences on the outcome a lot. My artworks which resonate with people the most are usually these which were strongly charged by a magick practice beforehead.