No one has more reason to hate AI than me. It has cost me two jobs and made my life difficult. However, I am also a user of it magically and otherwise. This has put me at odds with those who are trying to rationalise their terror of technology as magic or other issues. In most cases, showing ignorance of how it works and its impact.

The technology, as it exists now, however clever, is like an autocorrect. It uses existing data to guess what the next line in the word should be and checks it for context.  It cannot develop new occult material or leak “secrets” that are not already there. If you are seeing oath-breaking material coming from your AI, it is because someone else has already discovered it and broken it by putting it on the Internet (you could find the information by Googling).

AI can be used to create occult essays for your group texts, but if you do that, you are missing the point of what this exercise is supposed to be doing (memory retention, etc.) and are failing in your magical path.  While it was not due to AI, MOAA insists that people write out their course materials and tests by hand.

Other fear-based allegations are based on the use of AI to “replace creativity” and put creative people out of work. AI has limits on images and depends on the imagination of those using it.  If I use it to create a cartoon, the sense of humour remains mine; if I use it to create a painting, it must still be relevant to my needs.  In several of my books, I have used the Golden Dawn’s magical image system to create more realistic magical images. These are far more useful to my readers than the rough cartoons drawn by the original Golden Dawn.

Those who complain that AI is killing the jobs of creative people often have never bought a painting, commissioned an illustration, or had a library of unread pirated PDFs or music on their computer. Those who complain that AI datacentres are taking all the water and electricity away are doing so through a Facebook and Google datacentre. They were not complaining when local journalism died because advertising was cheaper on the Internet. Neither did they worry when a lack of advertising killed off the trade press. The fear of losing creativity only exists because technology is involved.

I should point out that AI cannot replace good writing, artwork or design. While useful, it averages everything.  It turns shit writers into even shittier writers spitting out information in the same way as each other. No amount of AI can match a magical or creative experience.

Fear is failure, and fear of AI will result in failure. Humanity is going in that direction no matter what, so the choice is to adapt or fall behind.  I recommend this article for those who want to think some more about this https://substack.com/home/post/p-186363686

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