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[3]Tracy Durnell's Mind Garden
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[151]Fantasy [152]Technology
Generative AI as a magic system
• Post author By [153]Tracy Durnell
• Post date [154]June 24, 2025
• [155]3 Comments on Generative AI as a magic system
• ❤️
We treat generative AI like magic… and magic systems have rules. When creating
fantasy worlds, writers think about who can use magic, how magic is performed,
what it’s able to do, what its constraints are, what the source of magic is,
and what it costs. I’m applying a bit of reverse worldbuilding to the real
world to extrapolate the rules of the AI magic system.
[156]Islands in the Sky by Death Valley Girls
Who can use AI magic: magic users pay to use corporate AI magic systems. Those
who are wealthy and tech savvy enough can host their own local model. Free
magic use is mostly limited to corporate largesse ultimately intended to build
magic dependency.
How AI magic is cast: AI spells are cast with written text input through a
digital interface. Spells are refined and recast until the outcome satisfies
(spells produce different results every time they are cast).
What AI magic can do: AI spells can produce combinations of words that are
[157]interpreted as writing, code-like material that sometimes runs as code,
images that resemble art, and video that resembles reality. It can create
imitations of specific human creators’ work, as well as individual’s speech and
appearance. It can also mimic human conversation for a span of time before the
spell dissipates. AI magic is near instantaneous, allowing people without
technical skills to produce text and graphics faster than writers and artisans.
What AI magic cannot do: AI magic [158]cannot produce the same outcome twice,
nor act upon existing conjurations, instead casting spells anew each time. AI
magic itself cannot reference sources, though may be used in tandem with other
tools that enable citation ([159]though with questionable accuracy). AI magic
cannot reason or write, but its conjurations may create [160]the illusion of
intelligence through their statistical consistency with written language use.
The source of AI magic: AI magic derives from statistical analysis of
human-created art, [161]writing, speech, music, and video, classified and
sorted by human laborers in low-cost geos.
The cost of AI magic: Resource costs of AI magic include [162]power, [163]water
, and high-end chips, which themselves require specialized manufacturing and
rare earth minerals.
Social costs include the [164]reinforcement of racism and sexism, as well as
mental harm to AI trainers assessing inputs to the magic system.
Societal costs include [165]job elimination and [166]job intensification as
positions able to be reproduced in part by magic are [167]eliminated and that
magic work is shifted to the remaining workers.
Information costs include the [168]destruction of the [169]online publishing
incentive structure / [170]information commons, leading to more paywalled
content; an [171]increase in low-quality material, which makes finding accurate
information harder; as well as the danger of [172]political propaganda by
poisoned magic systems.
Individual user costs include critical thinking skills, writing abilities, and
patience for conversing with humans.
Further reading:
[173]The new magic of AI vs. the old magic of artists by Kening Zhu
See also:
[174]Generative AI and the Business Borg aesthetic
• Tags [175]artificial intelligence, [176]computer generated, [177]cost,
[178]Labor, [179]LLM, [180]magic, [181]metaphor, [182]rules, [183]
worldbuilding
[70c71f48c24aa2fcf7]
By Tracy Durnell
Writer and designer in the Seattle area. Reach me at tracy@tracydurnell.com or
@tracy@notes.tracydurnell.com. She/her.
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3 replies on “Generative AI as a magic system”
[cfbec22f5a11e] [187]Colin says:
[188]June 26, 2025 at 5:12 pm
I very much like the breakdown of costs into those categories, it really spells
(ha) it out well. I’d taken a Genie/ Demonology approach to AI magic, be keen
on your thoughts – [189]https://vonexplaino.com/blog/posts/article/2024/10/
ai-ai-compthulu-fauxthagn-the-ai-grimoire.html
[190]Reply
[70c71f48c24aa] [191]Tracy Durnell says:
[192]June 27, 2025 at 7:51 pm
This is totally delightful Colin! I especially like the Cults framing. This
line — “asking the same thing multiple times gets different answers. It’s just
like magic. Or insanity.” — perfect 😄
[193]Reply
[IMG_9150-100x] [194]Joe Crawford says: @ [195]artlung.com
[196]June 27, 2025 at 6:11 pm
Generative AI as a Magic System
[197]Reply
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[11] https://tracydurnell.com/mind-garden/links-to-blog-about/
[12] https://tracydurnell.com/questions/
[13] https://tracydurnell.com/questions/future-of-the-internet/
[14] https://tracydurnell.com/questions/information-diet/
[15] https://tracydurnell.com/questions/culture/
[16] https://tracydurnell.com/questions/transforming-capitalism/
[17] https://tracydurnell.com/questions/resisting-fascism/
[18] https://tracydurnell.com/questions/feminism/
[19] https://tracydurnell.com/questions/thinking-better/
[20] https://tracydurnell.com/questions/effective-creative-processes/
[21] https://tracydurnell.com/questions/writing-fiction/
[22] https://tracydurnell.com/about/
[23] https://tracydurnell.com/about/
[24] https://tracydurnell.com/start-here/
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[26] https://tracydurnell.com/category/weeknotes/
[27] https://tracydurnell.com/pages/
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[29] https://tracydurnell.com/reading/read-in-2025/
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[41] https://tracydurnell.com/blogroll/
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[53] https://tracydurnell.com/mind-garden/
[55] https://tracydurnell.com/mind-garden/
[56] https://tracydurnell.com/category/featured/
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[156] https://deathvalleygirls.bandcamp.com/album/islands-in-the-sky
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[158] https://tracydurnell.com/2023/06/12/llms-fail-as-a-tool-because-results-are-not-replicable/
[159] https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/ai-search-engines-give-incorrect-answers-at-an-alarming-60-rate-study-says/
[160] https://tracydurnell.com/2023/04/09/read-on-the-dangers-of-stochastic-parrots-can-language-models-be-too-big-%f0%9f%a6%9c/
[161] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/libgen-meta-openai/682093/
[162] https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech/
[163] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-impacts-data-centers-water-data/
[164] https://tracydurnell.com/2023/04/09/read-on-the-dangers-of-stochastic-parrots-can-language-models-be-too-big-%f0%9f%a6%9c/
[165] https://tracydurnell.com/2023/02/21/the-dream-of-ai-is-the-dream-of-free-labor/
[166] https://henry.codes/writing/economics-and-labor-rights-in-ai-skepticism/
[167] https://thejaymo.net/2025/06/07/2513-gpt-job-losses-slowly-then-suddenly/
[168] https://www.axios.com/2025/06/19/ai-search-traffic-publishers
[169] https://www.thisdaysportion.com/posts/the-end-of-seo/
[170] https://www.citationneeded.news/free-and-open-access-in-the-age-of-generative-ai/
[171] https://tracydurnell.com/2024/01/09/generated-content-is-an-invasive-species-in-the-online-ecosystem/
[172] https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/03/07/russian-disinformation-network-flooded-training-data-to-manipulate-western-ai-chatbots-study-finds
[173] https://keningzhu.com/journal/the-new-magic-of-ai-vs-the-old-magic-of-artists
[174] https://tracydurnell.com/2025/06/02/generative-ai-and-the-business-borg-aesthetic/
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[187] https://vonexplaino.com/
[188] https://tracydurnell.com/2025/06/24/generative-ai-as-a-magic-system/#comment-14216
[189] https://vonexplaino.com/blog/posts/article/2024/10/ai-ai-compthulu-fauxthagn-the-ai-grimoire.html
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[210] https://indieweb.org/webmention
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[216] https://tracydurnell.com/category/featured/
[217] https://tracydurnell.com/mind-garden/index#categories
[218] https://tracydurnell.com/random
[219] https://tracydurnell.com/2025/06/30/read-cooking-as-though-you-might-cook-again/
[220] https://tracydurnell.com/2025/06/29/self-webmention-versus-self-pingback/
[221] https://tracydurnell.com/2025/06/28/email-to-my-representative-re-tabling-impeachment/
[222] https://tracydurnell.com/2025/06/27/weeknotes-june-21-27-2025/
[223] https://tracydurnell.com/2025/06/27/read-we-will-not-cancel-us/
[224] https://tracydurnell.com/
[225] https://micro.blog/tracydurnell
[226] https://micro.blog/tracydurnell?remote_follow=1
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[233] https://wordpress.org/
[234] https://tracydurnell.com/2025/06/24/generative-ai-as-a-magic-system/#site-header