External Intelligence: Oracles, Divination and Animism, and the Use of LLMs/Generative AI Available to Purchase

Applying Symbolic Interactionist (SI) and Anthropological theory, this chapter relates divination and oracle consultation as these manifest within contemporary generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) systems, specifically chatbots and Large Language Models (LLMs). We focus on how these interactions illuminate concepts of meaning, identity, and place. GenAI, as a new form of intertextual media and interaction, poses significant challenges and opportunities for a SI-based framework. The authors explore the generalized other with regard to GenAI and the relations between this and a person interacting with it via chatbot. By understanding these parallels, the authors better understand how a person, mediated by a chatbot, can make meaning with respect to the information in the document collection model leveraged by the chatbot. The authors also identify some underlying ethical concerns and missing considerations within the current GenAI systems being used for consultation, forecasting, and decision-making and to improve the safety of future AI systems and human partnership with these.