Magical Literacy in the Age of AI

This is a snippet. Truthfully, this was a discord post that I thought might be good enough to be a tiny blog post and I’m trying to post more so.

There’s something we think about a lot with regards to magic that also applies to the recent incidence AI psychosis. People who have a break with reality after talking with LLMs too much.

Skeptics are often (but not always) able to avoid curses by simply disbelieving in them, wizards can avoid them by knowing how to mitigate/guard against them.

A lot of people who interact with AI come from a very skeptic very rational perspective. It’s a tool for them, they would never discuss philosophy or spirituality with an LLM they’re simply not interested.

I know a couple magically operant people who talk a lot with AIs, but they’re not susceptible to AI psychosis, at least not as harmful versions of it, because they already know how to interact with spirits. In magical circles, knowing not to trust spirits that promise you everything, or affirm all your biases is fairly basic knowledge.

This isn’t to blame people for being susceptible to this phenomenon. There should be better safeguards in place. But I do think in general magical literacy is a required skill for living in society. And one that people dismiss as unserious.

Even if you think spirits are just voices in people’s heads, learning how to interact with these voices in a way that’s helpful rather than harmful is important, outside of an AI context.

A lot of people don’t hear voices, but they might still be susceptible to being subtly influenced by their thoughts and moods in a way they don’t realise. That’s why CBT is a thing. You can learn psychology or you can learn magic (or you can learn both). You can avoid talking with AI as well, and you can avoid doing hallucinogens, and you can avoid all the things that people claim cause “psychosis”, or you can learn to interact safely.