Welcome, seeker.
Rest your bones and
stay a spell.

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About

Do Machines Dream of Magic? is a website and series of intimate gatherings aimed at exploring the role of traditional forms of magic during a time of AI magic. It aims to merge ancient beliefs with futuristic systems in order to explore tensions, opportunities, anxieties and hopes around the future of technology in a time of climate change and increased concerns about the state of the world.

The entire website is designed and built with the help from AI - the visuals are generated by Mid Journey or Stable Diffusion, the text is generated with the help of ChatGPT. All the work sits at the intersection of technology, spirituality, and social change, fostering a deeper understanding of the ways in which individuals navigate the digital realm and their relationship with artificial intelligence.

The in-person event is a light gathering of people to experience and deliver the spells. We work with LLMs, Stable Diffusion models and the prompt templates to craft a ritual that we are enacting for protection in this new digital age.

Supports

We are grateful to the Civic Media Fellowship at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism and Communications and the AI for Media & Storytelling (AIMS) Initiative of USC Center for Generative AI & Society for supporting this project.

Lead Artists

Qianqian Ye (they/she) is a Chinese artist, creative technologist and educator based in Los Angeles (Gabrielino-Tongva Land). Trained as an architect, she creates digital, physical, and social spaces exploring issues around gender, immigration, power, and technology. Their most recent collaborative project, The Future of Memory, was a recipient of the Mozilla Creative Media Award. At the Processing Foundation, Qianqian is the Lead of p5.js, an open-source art and education platform that prioritizes access and diversity in learning to code, with over 1.5 million users. She currently teaches creative coding as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at USC Media Arts + Practice and 3D Arts at Parsons School of Design. For 2022-2023, Qianqian is a Civic Media Fellow at USC Annenberg Innovation Lab.

AX Mina (she/they) is a creative consultant, futures thinker and leadership coach. She served as a contributing editor for the book Ai Weiwei: Spatial Matters. AX published Memes to Movements: How the World’s Most Viral Media is Changing Social Protest and Power in January 2019 and is co-author of The Hanmoji Handbook with Jason Li and Jennifer 8. Lee. She has also written for the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Atlantic, Nieman Journalism Lab and New York Magazine, among others. She is currently a Senior Civic Media Fellow at the USC Annenberg School for Journalism and Communications and an affiliate at the Institute for the Future, and she is a certified trauma-informed yoga teacher.

Artist Statement

We’ve become interested in the rise of two forms of magical thinking having an impact on civics: generative AI and age-old magic practices like astrology, divination and spell casting. This project aims to engage people in core concepts of AI through the lens of ancient magic, merging magical traditions to develop an approachable, informed and coherent sense of the possible role of artificial intelligence in our lives.

As generative artificial intelligence begins to influence and shape society, a discourse of what we call “technocratic magical thinking” makes it difficult to have meaningful conversations about the future of these tools, their civic role, and how we can work with them productively—or resist them entirely. In the spirit of treating AI literacy as a civic good, we try to make transparent the process through which this project is developed, highlighting the different throughpoints and interactions between generative AI systems and human creativity that will come together to bring this project to life.

At the same time, we are examining the re-emergent role of traditional magic systems, from astrology to tarot, from shamanism to spell casting, in popular discourse, as we witness a merging with magic and core principles of justice. We hope that formulating this project around an area of popular interest will help facilitate engagement, joy and curiosity. The project is presented as an open-source website and public gatherings, encouraging participation, collaboration, and community engagement, with room for people to explore their questions and concerns about the ongoing evolution of AI.

Guest Artists

For the first interation of this project, we commissioned artists Cy X, Edgar Fabián Frías, Helen Shewolfe Tseng, and Jamel Mims/ MC Tingbudong to develop AI personas.

Shader Sphere

The shader sphere used in this background is adapted from Shader Sketch by clustah.

Many beings are here to support you.
To whom does your spirit call?