Intent

We are interested in exploring the concept of divination and fortune-telling, especially how that holds the power to influence relationships between individual humans, or even change how people view each other (ie. matchmaking and compatibility tests). The fact that people willingly believe (to varying degrees) the results from such tests is closely related to System 1 thinking in psychology. The small, happy coincidences in a fortune-telling context are interpreted as signs from unseen forces directing people’s fate.

Another relevant concept we explore with this project is illusory correlation. This is an idea in psychology that describes the phenomenon where people perceive relationships between variables when no relationships actually exist. It points out the fact that correlation is not equal to causation.

We find similar themes in the widespread use (and overuse) of machine learning in today’s society to power decision-making, be it policy, economic, or even personal. As people aim for efficiency and neglect proper design of models or data curation, they blindly follow machine predictions in a manner similar to superstition, or exaggerate the capabilities of large language models like GPT4 which still produces groundless or biased statements.