The machine was standing next to a daily counter, which climbed a pile cardboard boxes near the entrance of the reputed magazines in Knowita. It had a standing washer-drying height, with black buttons, rows of blinking lights and labeled gauges with celestial bodies-“Sun,” Moon, “and eight planets-were in front of its white aspects.
“It could be something from NASA,” Tim Widman, a 27 -year -old German student, said, who visited the store on Wednesday night in June.
While Mr. Widman was standing in front of the machine, its front screen directed him to “ask” stars “. Using a knob, he cycled through some 100 questions. Of them: How can I get better in my job? Should I leave New York? Should I start a creed?
After choosing a question, Mr. Widman entered his date of birth, time and place. The screen gave a message that was read, in the part: “All answers are based on astrological calculations.” The machine took its photo using a built -in camera. After moments, it answers a piece of paper to its granular picture and their question.
“It is as if someone is there,” Mr. Vidman said, one of the many who came to use the machine that night. Many times, lines start snakes through lines because people were waiting for a turn. Many visitors said that they had heard about the machine on Tikok, including two 19 -year -old students.
“I asked for my red flag,” one of the students said that before the question he had chosen, the other student read the printed answer of the machine vigorously.
He said: “Your red flag includes a tendency to include high expectations and fear of struggle. Your Jupiter and Saturn Placement suggests the need for fear of perfection and rejection. By avoiding conflict, you can limit your ability for development and meaningful connections. Remember, conflict is an underlying part of intimacy. Practice it with compassion and release unrealistic expectations. ,
Like most people using the machine that night, neither he nor he knew in the beginning that its answers were produced using artificial intelligence, including CHATGPT and GPT-3.
The machine was developed by co-star, which is a technology company with a Buzzy astrology app that uses AI to generate readings. This will be in the prestigious magazines for most of the summer and then the end of this year will run Los Angeles.
For centuries, astrologers have mentioned the movement and positions of planets and other astronomical bodies to inform the reading and horoscope. Co-stars follow similar methods, but its daily reading is prepared by AI that draws lessons from a database written by a team of astrologers and poets for the app.
The machine, which was free to use, was designed to promote the new in-app service of the co-stake, The zero, which begins approximately $ 1. The service works the same as the machine: Users can ask open-ended questions that are usually not addressed in the astrological reading of the app and receive the answer generated by AI using the co-star database of the finished text.
35-year-old Banu Guler, the founder of co-star, named a series of beauty inspirations for the machine, including the Soviet-era computers, the equipment used by NASA, photo booths and vending and washing machines. He said that it was also influenced by the zolter fortuneling machines, which were once common attractions in the boardwalk and arcade, he said.
“The best thing is that you get your little reading,” Ms. Guler said about the zolter machines. “And then you simply literate your reading on your fridge, or in your book, or in your magazine, or it is just at the bottom of your bag, if you are mine.”
“Even if you know that it is garbage, it is special garbage,” he said, a smile shines.
Before starting co-star in 2017, Ms. Guler worked in technology for art and fashion companies. He said that back, he used AI to estimate that some factors like the season on the auction date can affect the sale price of an artwork. He later attracted what he had learned about AI to develop co-star.
“It was so, how can it fit in astrology?” He said.
“Astrology is not an ideal science, but there is no right science, which I am not saying in an anti-science way,” said Ms. Guler. “I don’t believe that science is perfect, and I don’t believe something else is right, because humans are incomplete. And it’s good. Like, really, it is beautiful.”
In Northern India, 35 -year -old astrologer Vijendra Sharma, who specializes in Vedic astrology, said that he has used software to prepare readings. He said that because astrology was informed by science, until AI was trained with proper knowledge, he saw no harm in using technology.
Susan Miller, an astrologer in New York, who has written the horoscope for decades, was more doubtful. “AI is exciting for things like dividing atoms,” she said, saying that she would not rely on technology that often deal with human emotions. “Machines make mistakes,” said Ms. Miller. “And the person who receives the answer can rotate with that wrong answer forever.”
After checking the co-starring machine in the magazine shop, 23-year-old Nisara Kadam, who works in financial technology in New York, also suspected its AI-rich answers.
“This is a group of trained words together,” said Ms. Kadam. “It is not personal.”
26 -year -old Anna Joneska, a video director in New York, felt the opposite. Ms. Joneska said that she is not the biggest fan of astrology and the use of AI’s machine made her even more confident.
“I would be more inclined to believe that an old woman bending on a crystal ball is lying to me than a computer,” she said.
