Astrología
Astrology and books: when artificial intelligence learns to read the sky
An experiment that hands an astrology book to ChatGPT invites us to think about what happens when artificial intelligence confronts a millennia-old textual tradition: astrology as literature, as symbolic language and as an object of reading.
By Pedro J. Pérez ·
Introduction: an astrology book in the hands of a machine
The news that someone has given an astrology book to ChatGPT so that it learns about us poses an unusual scene: a traditional text, written to be read by people, becomes training or reference material for a language system. The gesture, seemingly anecdotal, condenses a fundamental question: what does a machine read when it reads astrology?
It is worth stressing that the available source is a news item from La Razón, with no verifiable technical details about the experiment. We do not know which book, which edition or what specific results were obtained. Therefore, any conclusion must be taken as a hypothesis. What we can examine is the literary and cultural framework in which that gesture acquires meaning.
Context: astrology as a textual tradition
Astrology is not only a practice of interpreting the sky: it is also a corpus of books. From ancient treatises to contemporary manuals, its history has been transmitted in writing, with genres of its own such as the treatise, the almanac, the horoscope or the symbolic essay. That textual character explains why an astrology book can become an object of reading for an artificial intelligence.
The source consulted does not specify which work was used or for what purpose. That absence of data makes it impossible to affirm that ChatGPT has 'learned astrology' in a technical sense. What the news item suggests, rather, is a popularising experiment: to test how a language model responds to a text that combines symbolic language, tradition and beliefs.
Explanation: what a language model can and cannot do
A language model such as ChatGPT does not understand the sky or observe planets: it works with statistical patterns extracted from large quantities of text. If it is given an astrology book, it can summarise it, paraphrase it or generate responses consistent with its vocabulary. But that is not equivalent to validating astrology as a science or to interpreting a real natal chart.
The La Razón news item does not provide concrete results from the experiment, so we cannot affirm what exactly happened. The reasonable thing is to distinguish between the capacity for linguistic imitation and comprehension of the astrological phenomenon. The model can reproduce the style of an astrologer, but it has no access to the symbolic experience or to the living tradition that sustains those texts.
Relevance: why it matters to read astrology with literary eyes
Beyond the experiment, astrology interests literary criticism because it has generated a powerful imaginary: destiny, character, the correspondence between cosmos and human life. Many authors have used its symbols to construct characters and plots. Reading those books as literature allows us to appreciate their rhetoric, their metaphors and their way of narrating identity.
The available source does not mention specific authors or works, so we cannot cite verifiable examples. However, the mere fact that an astrology book circulates and is discussed shows that it remains a living cultural object. The question is not only whether astrology is right, but what its texts say about us and why we keep reading them.
Useful information: how to approach an astrology book
For a curious reader, it is worth distinguishing between introductory manuals, historical treatises and popularising works. The first explain symbols and houses; the second allow us to see how the cosmos was thought of in other eras; the third tend to mix astrology with psychology or personal development. The source consulted does not recommend specific titles, so any list would be invented.
It is also useful to read with a critical spirit: to identify which statements are symbolic and which claim to be empirical. Astrology is not a science in the modern sense, but its books can be read as cultural documents. That double gaze, literary and sceptical, enriches the experience without requiring belief or outright rejection.
Conclusion: the machine reads, but we interpret
The experiment of giving an astrology book to ChatGPT does not prove that artificial intelligence understands the sky or that astrology is true. It proves, above all, that texts remain the place where traditions are transmitted and transformed. The machine can process them, but interpretation remains human.
The La Razón news item, with its limits and its lack of details, invites a calm reflection: what we read when we read astrology and what we expect to find. Perhaps the answer is not in the zodiac, but in the human need to narrate destiny with words. And that, after all, is literature.