The Magician is in his final hour, and the Fool in his grave

I’ve shown my kids ChatGPT a few times, asking it funny/grandiose questions (how much chocolate milk would it take to fill the Grand Canyon, what’s the hardest riddle, etc) to demonstrate it’s impressive knowledge reach and clever responses.

So I should have seen it coming, but I noticed a change in the questions my children started asking me, specifically with my oldest sons (11 and 9 years old)

Instead of the typical “Dad, why…” questions, on the bigger and wilder questions, I hear:

“Dad, can you ask chatGPT why…”

I expected a bit of this initially, but as it grows to be more prevalent I feel concerned. It was only recently could I put my finger on why, and it revolves around the Magician and the Fool archetypes.

If you haven’t had a chance to read King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, I highly recommend it.

In their book, Moore describes the Magician archetype in a most excellent way:

“All knowledge that takes special training to acquire is the province of the Magician energy. Whether you are an apprentice training to become a master electrician and unraveling the mysteries of high voltage; or a medical student, grinding away night and day, studying the secrets of the human body and using available technologies to help your patients; or a would-be stockbroker or a student of high finance; or a trainee in one of the psychoanalytic schools, you are in exactly the same position as the apprentice shaman or witch doctor in tribal societies. You are spending large amounts of time, energy, and money in order to be initiated into rarefied realms of secret power. You are undergoing an ordeal testing your capacities to become a master of this power.
And, as is true in all initiations, there is no guarantee of success.”
—Robert Moore

You can start to see the problem already, I’m sure. Our modern magicians (Doctors, Engineers, etc) are relying more and more every day on AI. Our masters are shifting back into apprentices, paying their respects to the nebulous magic of AI. And who can blame them? Already in its nascent form, AI has shown it’s prowess and will soon surpass any expert. It will become the ultimate authority, the highest source of knowledge for all to access (for a fee).

Society’s magicians will devolve into their shadow selves:

In a more active facility, we’ll see The Detached Manipulator: A false magician, who hoards and weaponizes what knowledge he has - gatekeeping the access to the “Oracle”, the high priests will determine if your sacrifice is worthy to receive an answer to your prayers (Looking at you, Sam Altman). Silicon Valley is a veritable den of Manipulators seeking to shape and control the embryonic god, and the access people have to it.

In a more passive (and far more prevalent and dangerous) facility we’ll see the Denying Magician. The Magician that curses his wand when his mumbled spell turns foul, rather than clearing his throat. This shadow form will relinquish authority and responsibility to the Oracle, softening into simpletons pushing buttons. There have been so many recent examples of this in the news, from a journalist copying and pasting an entire AI article, including the follow up questions AI had for him, into a paper that became published, to vibe-coders accidentally wiping out their entire company’s production database.

The Denying Magician has no intention of learning, is not wielding this magic appropriately to further his expertise and dive deeper into the unknown. He has shackled the infant god of AI to his whims and tasks, whipping it and indulging in its service. The Denying Magician is becoming mentally fat and lazy, his expertise atrophying in real time.

This sounds hyperbolic and extreme, but it’s very real. A recent MIT study showcases this clearly - the more people use AI, the less they use the parts of their brain involved in critical thinking. If we follow this rate our dependence on AI will be absolute in a frighteningly short span.

What happens next in a world without true Magicians?

Internally as men and fathers the Magician aspect of ourselves is critical. It is the archetypal force that gives the Warrior its battle plans, or counsels with the King. It tempers the Lover and mentors the Fool.

Without active restraint we may find ourselves forever looking upwards, while constantly shrugging off responsibility and our own authority. What are we then but children as well? Praying to a digital god, rather than God himself. We’ll find ourselves out of sync and unable to better ourselves. Why read books when AI can tell you the story faster? Why think at all, when something can do the thinking for you?

We’ll also see a generational strain, as most Millennials and Gen-Z become tragically underdeveloped in this sense, between them and their children. We already see this with Millennials as adults and their parents, the baby boomer generation. Millennials were introduced to the internet in their formative years, and the fallout is prevalent. Not to dive too deep into the tragedy but there is “no need” for the hard-earned experience of wisdom of your parents when you can google (or now, ask AI) and find cited sources for the questions of your heart.

Enter the most important victim of AI: The Fool

The Fool archetype, initially, sounds like a negative. Nobody wants to be a “fool” in the commonly understood sense. But archetypally the fool is a cherished part of the whole.

The Fool is curiosity, wonder, awe, and thirst for knowledge. The Fool brings with it humility and a willingness to learn, and is the predecessor to the Magician. The Fool is the Potter’s clay that years of hard work, mistake and mastery molds into the Magician, an expert in his field and a source of wisdom and experience.

The Fool is being poisoned by convenience and instant access to knowledge through AI. It is alarming that the usage of AI skyrockets whenever schools goes back into session, and new tools are being built every day that students are using to cheat on exams. Much more of this abuse and higher education will be pointless altogether. The next generation of Magicians are being pacified into oblivion with a nearly sentient 8 ball toy, what happens when it becomes better than it is now? Are we doomed to be completely dependent on these thirsty servers that power this Oracle?

We must save our Fools.

What can parents to do avoid this disaster?

There’s a few simple pivots parents can take that will help kids more than ever to be better prepared to handle this monumental tech shift. I’ve paired these items with scenes from the most famous wizard in human history: J.R.R. Tolkiens’ Gandalf.

Don’t fight it, understand it

Openly hating AI, overly distrusting it, or dismissing it as faulty whenever you are exposed to it will not help you as a Father. Many of us wish (myself included) to write it off as “Dark Magic” and hush it away in our homes, but this looming technology is one of the largest shifts in human history, we cannot change that. Instruct your children on how to use it when necessary, and teach them what it actually is. AI will help you explain itself to children, just ask it. They need to know that it’s an emergent software running on computers just like any other software we have today. Put the AI in its place, and use it there. The last thing we need is our children thinking it’s magical and mysterious (even if it is). Right now it’s a hyper-powered text predicting mechanism (it won’t be just that for long). It’s not “good” or “evil,” it simply is.

Consider how Gandalf, while investigating the ring of power that Bilbo had passed to Frodo at the beginning of their journey, showed Frodo how to activate it, allowed him to handle it, and taught him the dangers of it. Of course he initially panicked and told Frodo to keep it secret and safe, which is understandable - the dangers were terrible if confirmed, which they eventually were. So he lays it out for Frodo, in plain terms - and while this does not do away the fear of such a weapon, Frodo understands its limitations and his responsibility with it.

Encourage your children to think first

This is a simple one, but an important one. When your children ask you a question, a question they believe that only AI can answer, require of them their best explanation first. Show them how logic works, walk with them mentally down the paths their assumption are paving before them.

“Why is the sky blue?”

“Good question, why do you think it’s blue?”

Follow the conversations as far as possible when you can.

“Why do I have to do my chores?”

“Good question, what happens when you don’t do them?”

This is the Magician in his pure form, mentoring and guiding them (as Fools) through the complexities of life towards mastery. A perfect scenic example of this can be found deep in the mines of Moria, when Gandalf sits with Frodo and discusses the fate of Gollum and the role he has to play.

Protect them

Arguably Gandalf’s most powerful scene, defending Frodo (the embodiement of the Fool) and company from the Balrog, a dark force woken by the greed of delving dwarves (we see you, Mark Zuckerberg). Fun Fact, the Balrog is in fact a fallen Maiar, a corrupted shadow form of the same order of Gandalf. For some reason it seems a natural fit to paint AI as the Balrog, a soul-less entity ready to consume all before it. But the parallel runs even deeper. AI is instantly accessible information, containing traces of the wisdom of the authors whose content it consumed to grow so large, but not enough to be trusted. If information is power then it embues great power to its user, but power unearned to those who may not know how to wield it. For children, this is very dangerous.

You can combat this by developing trust with your children, not in the amount of knowledge you hold (that battle has already been lost), but by skill of discernment you can teach and pass on to your child. This is what separates the true Magician from the AI, your judgement. Your perspective crafted over decades of life experience and a deeper knowledge of your child than anyone else in the world could know.

I feel like we are now living this scene, the Magician vs. AI, and if we win, we will come out wiser and an incredibly powerful guiding source for our children and their children.

And Finally, Use it

I’ve laid out the fears and dangers of using AI, and I completely believe that if you’re not extremely careful it will rot your brain through disuse, but there will be a small subset of the population that will see the value it can bring and use it as a tool, not a weapon or a slave. It will put it in its proper function and use it to bridge the gaps in only a way that the collective knowledge of humanity could. Some of us will yoke ourselves to the wagon right next to it, and together will spring humanity into the most remarkable unknown. Not only will you exceed your own limits and could amplify yourself ten-fold through the appropriate use of AI, the way you model this approach to your children will allow them to do the same. It’s at this point when you’ve conquered it, that you will come through as Gandalf the White and be the force of nature that turns the tides and changes the wind to carry your children forward in growth through their own journey.