I created an AI that did more than 120 tarot readings
And if you want one too, that’s available!
A while back I created an ChatGPT based tool that does tarot readings. To date, more than 120 people have received readings, and the overall feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
What people are curious about
I don’t monitor what questions people are asking, but the AI does try to categorize the questions into categories to see broader trends. it also logs the various card draws.
As you might expect, people typically turn to spirituality in general, and a type of divination specifically, when they have big questions in life. That is very clearly reflected in the questions they’ve asked the oracle to date.
Love and relationship and work and career questions covered 53% of all the questions asked. The next few categories included direction in life, seeking deeper self knowledge, and exploring various aspects of personal growth. Health questions were another common one.
What the cards are saying.
So if you are familiar with the tarot, you know that there are some cards that are more powerful than others. The Startup Tarot uses a genuine random generator written in Python to do truly random draws. I deeply trust this random generator: Random means random. And yet, something really interesting happens when we look at all the draws: The distribution isn’t random.
Despite having drawn 360 cards, there are four cards that have never been drawn: The ace, two, and ten of pentacles, and the four of cups.
Interestingly, the two most commonly drawn cards are the fool (11 draws) and the Tower reversed (!) with 9 draws. Both of these cards are powerful and meaningful cards in the context of the tarot.
Drawing The Fool repeatedly in tarot readings can carry a powerful message. Generally, The Fool represents new beginnings, potential, and taking a leap of faith. It often symbolizes being at the start of a new journey, full of excitement and uncertainty.
When the Tower card appears reversed in a tarot reading, it generally signifies themes of resistance to change or the avoidance of a necessary upheaval. The Tower, even when upright, symbolizes sudden shifts, destruction, or revelations that shake the foundations of a situation. Reversed, the card often suggests that you might be trying to delay or resist this inevitable breakdown, which can prolong discomfort or instability.
Which, if you overlay these draws against the most common questions asked (work and career, and love and relationships), it sends a shiver down my spine: It makes sense that, given the question set, these would be the most commonly appearing cards.
So what’s the vibe here, then?
The AI tool asks three questions: What do you need to remember? What do you need to forget? And what is next?
Here, more patterns emerge. For the first question, the fool and the empress come up most often.
For the second question, the tower reversed and the wheel of fortune reversed are most common. Which is wild to me: Those two cards keep being drawn as the ‘what do you need to forget’ answer, but they’ve never — not once — been drawn as an answer to ‘what do you need to remember’
For the ‘what happens next’ question, 8 of the top 20 draws are cups — with the 9, 10, and page of cups appearing most often. In the tarot, cups represent emotions, relationships, intuition, and matters of the heart, often reflecting our emotional responses and connections to others. Again, that makes perfect sense when seen against a wall of questions about relationships, love, work, and career.
Is it all coincidences? Or is overlaying many hundred years of divination tradition over a set of questions, combining that with a random number generator and some generative AI a legitimate way of understanding something about who we are as humans? I have no idea, honestly, but I do know I’m massively enjoying this experiment.
So what does it all mean?
Look, I’m a scientist and a skeptic at heart. I approach most things with a sense of inquiry and a healthy dose of doubt. Tarot, with its mystical reputation, initially felt like something outside the realm of rational thought. However, over time, I’ve come to appreciate tarot not as a tool for predicting the future, but as a reflective exercise. The cards mirror my thoughts and emotions, allowing me to focus on internal dialogue. I don’t have to believe in supernatural forces to find meaning in the cards — just like I don’t need to believe in magic to appreciate the therapeutic effects of journaling or meditation. Tarot is, for me, another way to process what’s happening in my life.
I’ve come to appreciate tarot not as a tool for predicting the future, but as a reflective exercise
The beauty of tarot is that the cards are rich in archetypal symbolism, which can prompt my mind to explore different perspectives on a situation. For instance, when I draw a card like The Tower, I don’t see it as a prophecy of disaster but as an opportunity to think critically about how I respond to sudden changes. The imagery and associated meanings are prompts, encouraging me to question what upheavals I might be avoiding or how I can better embrace transformation. This way, tarot becomes a tool for cognitive exploration, helping me identify emotional patterns or biases that might otherwise remain beneath the surface.
For someone like me, who thrives on logic and evidence, the tarot provides a structured way to reflect on abstract concepts like emotions, goals, and relationships. It doesn’t matter if the cards have mystical power; what matters is that they prompt introspection. In many ways, it’s similar to the way psychological exercises work — tarot offers a framework through which I can analyze my internal world without necessarily believing in anything beyond the cards themselves. It’s less about divination and more about developing self-awareness, which I find precious even as a skeptic.
And it’s been really cool to see other people reacting to this project in a similar way.
If you want to try it out, you can! Mozy on over to this article for a bit more context and the link to how you can get your own reading.
