The New Oracles: QAnon, AI and Divination

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On October 28, 2017, an anonymous user posted this message on 4Chan: 

Hillary Clinton will be arrested between 7:45 AM–8:30 AM EST on Monday—the morning on Oct 30, 2017.

It was the beginning of a movement that would come to be known as QAnon. Part ‘conspiracy theory of everything’ and part cult, it would eventually attract millions of people who believed they were soldiers in a mythic struggle between Donald Trump and the deep state. The prediction of that first post never came true, and neither did hundreds more like it, but this didn’t stop the power of Q’s prophecies or the conviction held by millions that they were real.

As Trump continues his journey toward the White House despite his felony convictions, it’s possible QAnon will become a significant force again. Even if it never rises to its previous heights, similar movements are forming around the world.

Members of a far-right group called the Reichsbürger are currently on trial in Germany for plotting a coup to overthrow the state and establish a new Reich. Like QAnon, the Reichsbürger share a predilection for the occult and mystical. Some members consulted astrological charts to plan the coup, and a far-right politician at the centre of the group, Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, employed a fortune teller as her clerk.  

What these movements share is a fascination with divination. One of the most wide-spread religious practices, divination takes many forms, but one of the most common involves studying patterns of meaning to predict the future. Divination practices like astrology or the I Ching are widely used, while others are more obscure. We gaze into the future by reading tea leaves (tasseography), or carve names into cheese to reveal who we will marry (tyromancy), or practice ololygmancy; divining the future from the way dogs bark.

We ask a question, and then sift through complex information to discern hidden patterns that hold the answer. Does that sound like something you’ve done recently? Typed in a question, or an image prompt, and waited for an AI to trawl through a vast web of interconnected symbols you can’t see to reveal a deeper insight, or create something from nothing?

Artificial intelligence can’t tell the future, but generative AI models are the new oracles of the internet. They mediate between us and our strange online world. That place where our hopes churn into dreamlike forms, where the prophetic becomes profane, and everything seems possible. We already have AI therapists, AI girlfriends, and AI priests. They help us work, create art, and even give us life advice.

But what if they are poised to play a much deeper and more sinister role in our lives? In this piece, I’m going to make a case for why I think AI cults are going to proliferate in the coming years, and how that might radically change the QAnons of the future. I’ll point to where these forces are already forming, and what they tell us about the strange blending of spirituality and technology we’re all living through.

To begin, we have to understand how AI can be a liar and a prophet in the same breath.