Oracles, ancient and modern — the startling consequences of pitting ChatGPT against the I Ching

When I first heard about ChatGPT, a few weeks ago, I was fascinated. I knew it was only a matter of time before I tried it out for myself. 

The first time I connected with the website, though, I was at a bit of a loss. 

What questions should I ask? I had no idea. 

I’m not sure why I felt so intimidated. That was before the havoc caused by Bing.  

For the first time in our history, modern civilisation has found its very own oracle. 

Many societies, throughout history, have had oracles. There was the oracle of Delphi, called Pythia, who supposedly acted as the mouthpiece of the god Apollo. There was the oracle at Didyma in Asia Minor, near the city of Miletus. There were oracles at Abae in Persia, Menestheus in Greece, there was an oracle on the island of Ikaros, there were oracles in ancient Hawaii, India, China, etc. They were all over the place. 

Did they work, though? Did they speak the truth? Were they reliable? 

How does ChatGPT shape up compared to them? 

My first question to ChatGPT seemed like the obvious one to ask. 

I asked: “Can you describe yourself as an oracle?” 

I expected it to say something like, “No, I am not an oracle, I am a computer program, I do not make prophecies or predictions.” Something like that. 

The answer — quite a lengthy one, spewed out within a matter of seconds, surprised me. 

I quote ChatGPT:

“Yes, you can view me as a kind of oracle, in the sense that I am an AI (artificial intelligence) model designed to provide information and answer questions. I have been trained on a vast amount of text data and have been fine-tuned to provide accurate and helpful responses to a wide range of questions.” 

It went on for another few paragraphs, admitting its own shortcomings and warning that it might at times provide the wrong information. It also stressed the fact that it held no personal opinions and did not have any first-hand experience of life itself, etc, etc. 

All in all, a balanced and well-reasoned response. 

We were off to a flying start. I felt much more at ease. 

I also felt a vague sense of déjà vu, to be honest. 

I am not entirely new to the idea of questioning oracles, you see. Like many people I know, I have been consulting the I Ching, on a personal level, for a number of years. 

The I Ching, as many of you probably know, is a 3,000-year-old Chinese interactive text, consisting of 64 hexagrams. Confucius supposedly said that if he had another 100 years to live, he would spend 50 of them studying the I Ching. 

In other words, the I Ching is more than an oracle; it is, indeed, the oldest app known to man.

What also makes the I Ching different from other ancient oracles is that it never resided in a temple or on a mountaintop. Way back then, no one ever needed to travel far and wide in order to talk to it face to face. All one needed back then was a number of yarrow stalks, some short and some long, a bit of patience, and knowledge of the simple technique. 

These days, computers can simulate the random process of picking the right stalks in the right sequence. 

I have a copy of the I Ching app on my phone. It actually works. In the many years during which I had interacted with the I Ching on this app, it has given me a surprising number of meaningful and relevant answers. Even Carl Jung believed the I Ching to be the genuine article. 

So, immediately after reading ChatGPT’s response to my question, a thought sprang into my mind. 

A three-way conversation