Menace or Miracle!?
A.I. is everywhere! ChatGPT, Midjourney... Bots, text generators, image generators - They are infiltrating every business and aspect of our lives. Writers, researchers, artists, copywriters, even lawyers are using them! ....and Tarot Deck Creators! ...What does it all mean for the Tarot World?
Well, from examples I have seen, Professional Tarot Readers are "safe", at least for maybe a few more years. A.I. platforms haven't become sophisticated enough to perform one-on-one Tarot Readings up to our standards, yet anyways....
Who knows? Maybe they never will. It's not merely the cards, or the written definitions and meanings, but our connection, as humans, to our subconscious minds and the Collective Consciousness, that makes Tarot work!
The "A" in "A.I." does stand for "artificial" after all! 😆 Maybe, someday, A.I. will be able to mimic a sophisticated, human-like, Tarot experience, with (artificial) feeling and empathy. But I think we are far off from that.
One thing for sure is A.I. platforms are making many tasks much faster and easier for us humans. They are a fantastic "tool". A.I. generated art has been around for a while, but it's only been in the last year or two that platforms, such as Midjourney (now that Version 5 has come out) have made it much easier to do.
It's much more intuitive and needs less "input" to work on. So the inevitable flood of A.I. art has only ramped up more, including Tarot Decks (and oracle decks) using the art....
Menace or Miracle!? ....Many artist/deck creators are decrying A.I. art being used to create Tarot and oracle decks. They say it detracts or outright steals from "real" artists. Many have said A.I. decks they have seen are sometimes "pretty" but lack a certain quality. They look "empty" and "vacant".
I do agree that just quickly creating random images and slapping them on cards is not good for the industry. A deck with no coherent design or motif is not a quality deck to me. But I can see a lot of people jumping to do it, and that IS a Menace!
Of course similar arguments were made about "digital art" a decade or two back. It's not "real art". But the quality of such decks is undeniable, and they have become more than accepted in the world of deck consumers. Just look at the populatity of the decks Ciro Marchetti has produced!
Some A.I. generated art is quite gorgeous, others not so much. It takes a lot of skill to use the text prompts properly to create a good outcome. They even have a name for it, "Prompt Engineering".
I think in the hands of an actual digital artist/designer, A.I. generated art can be a great "tool". Just like any other element included in the creation of a digital art piece.
Not random images generated and slapped on cards, but well thought out designs, "assisted" by A.I. and executed by actual artists/designers. In fact, this is a Miracle for those of us who are artistically-challenged!
Whether it's simply to come up with ideas (for those of us not that imaginative), or elements to be used as part of a greater tapestry.
So, how will A.I. Tarot Decks Impact the Market in the Future? ...This is exactly what Mary and I asked The Tarot, in our monthly "Psychic Spin" segment of our "Tarot Today LIVE" show, Saturday, April 29th! You can check it out here:
You can watch the Full Episode here:
www.youtube.com/live/rO90PG_sKUA
Bright Blessings!
~ Dax 🎙️ 🤠 💜 ☕️
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