From I-Ching to AI: Interrogating Digital Divination
Conference: 29th International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA)
Authors: Hugh Davies (RMIT University)
Keywords: Games, Media Art, Artificial Intelligence
Abstract
Divination denotes practices of mediation that aim to reveal hidden knowledge and sketch out speculative futures before they come into being. Often employing creative and playful methods, divinatory speculations wield ominous power, even when inaccurate. Today, this power is becoming con-centrated within neoliberal coordinates following the pro-fessionalization of divination, most markedly through artifi-cial intelligence (AI). Reviewing the literature of past and present divinatory practices to interrogate its methods from games to AI, this paper offers four key contributions: (1) it establishes divination as a media arts practice; (2) it traces transnational histories of this practice; (3) it unpacks the lim-itations and issues arising from AI divination, and (4) it pre-sents strategies and tactics to confront them. Mapping the shifting power-relations and speculative practices of predic-tion, this paper reveals and critiques the unannounced spir-itual mysticism surrounding contemporary AI and its in-creasing embrace within late-capitalist future forecasting.
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