The telegraph, radio, AI, and magic

Cody Delistraty, A.I. Isn’t Magic. Lots of People Are Acting Like It Is. NYTimes, Sept. 25, 2025.

There’s a word that Sam Altman likes to use when talking about artificial intelligence: magic. Last year, he called a version of ChatGPT “magic intelligence in the sky.” In February, he referred to “magic unified intelligence.” He later posted that a recent update has “a magic to it i haven’t felt before.”

At times, A.I. can indeed feel magical. But treating it as anything other than a mere machine can have serious consequences. How many pose their deepest questions to chatbots, as if to an omniscient oracle? They ask Claude or ChatGPT: What should I do about this relationship? This job? This problem? Technology’s supposed promise of salvation — whether it’s Mars colonization, eternal life or achieving the A.I. “singularity” — has become a kind of secular religion, a mix of utopian beliefs that borders on the mystical.

Part of A.I.’s mystique comes from the fact that its inner workings aren’t entirely understood, even by its creators.

And so forth and so on. The article is about AI and magical thinking about it. But halfway through it has a telling section about magical beliefs occasioned by the invention and deployment of the telegraph and then of radio:

There’s a word that Sam Altman likes to use when talking about artificial intelligence: magic. Last year, he called a version of ChatGPT “magic intelligence in the sky.” In February, he referred to “magic unified intelligence.” He later posted that a recent update has “a magic to it i haven’t felt before.”

At times, A.I. can indeed feel magical. But treating it as anything other than a mere machine can have serious consequences. How many pose their deepest questions to chatbots, as if to an omniscient oracle? They ask Claude or ChatGPT: What should I do about this relationship? This job? This problem? Technology’s supposed promise of salvation — whether it’s Mars colonization, eternal life or achieving the A.I. “singularity” — has become a kind of secular religion, a mix of utopian beliefs that borders on the mystical.

Part of A.I.’s mystique comes from the fact that its inner workings aren’t entirely understood, even by its creators.

A bit later Delistraty observes: "People who describe A.I. engines as 'magical. seem to be saying A.I. has become so sophisticated that it is indistinguishable from what was once considered magic." And yet he missed the third Arthur C. Clark's well-known “three laws”: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

There’s more at the link.