Unpopular Opinion: ChatGPT Is Over-Engineered Astrology

Here’s something that might ruffle some feathers: ChatGPT and astrology are doing the same thing. They’re both pattern-matching systems optimized to give you plausible answers.

Before the pitchforks come out, let me explain.

The Machine Learning Recipe

At its core, machine learning follows a straightforward process:

1. Set up input features (words, images, data points)
2. Define desired outcomes (coherent text, accurate predictions, useful responses)
3. Provide training baselines and examples
4. Optimize a cost function to minimize the gap between inputs and outcomes

The result? A model that generates plausible outputs. Not necessarily true. Not necessarily accurate. But plausible enough that they feel right, sound right, and often are right.

That word — plausible — is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

The Astrological Method

Now let’s look at astrology. It works like this:

1. Takes in a set of input features (planetary positions, aspects, houses) based on astronomically verified ephemeris data
2. Maps these to outcome categories…