Outflanked by AI, stars fade for South Korea's blind fortune-tellers
The village’s practitioner count has fallen from 70 or 80 to fewer than 20 as free and low-cost AI readings draw away customers, researchers said.
- In Seoul's Mia village, traditional blind fortune-tellers like 86-year-old Song Oh-soon are losing clients to AI-powered divination apps, with the community retaining fewer than 20 practitioners from its original 70 or 80.
- Mia village emerged in 1966 as a haven for visually impaired practitioners, but in South Korea's AI-connected society, the primary challenge is not declining belief in fortune-telling—it is how people access the service.
- South Korea's fortune-telling market is worth 1.4 trillion won as of 2024, yet AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini have drawn clients from Song's 50,000-won sessions in favor of free or affordable readings.
- University professor Oh Ji-hye, 44, recently sought Song's counsel after years preferring AI readings, saying, "It felt good that someone rather than AI was concentrating on and listening to my story."
- Song remains adamantly offline, relying on four decades of experience and the "Four Pillars of Destiny" astrology in braille; despite the village's decline, she believes no fate is set in stone.
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Artificial intelligence displaces blind fortune tellers from Seoul. Find out how AI chatbots threaten to extinguish an ancestral trade in South Korea.
Online artificial intelligence-based divination is taking customers from Song Oh-soon's fortune teller village around Seoul. At 86, Song is one of the last members of a community of visually impaired professionals who has attracted generations of South Koreans to seek answers and advice about everything — from diseases and money to love and destiny. In one of the most connected societies to AI in the world, the greatest challenge of the village …
Customers are leaving Song Oh-soon village of fortune tellers, outside Seoul, and replacing traditional consultations with intelligent predictions...
Outflanked by AI, South Korea's blind fortune-tellers fade into obscurity
In the quiet village of Mia, an 86-year-old blind fortune-teller fights to preserve a centuries-old tradition as AI divination takes the world by storm. Explore how modern technology is reshaping belief, community, and the very essence of fortune-telling in South Korea.
Outflanked by AI, stars fade for South Korea's blind fortune-tellers
At 86, Song is one of the last members of a community of visually impaired practitioners that drew generations of South Koreans seeking answers and advice about everything from illness and money to love and fate. In one of the world's most AI-connected societies, the village's greatest challenge is not fading belief in fortune-telling, but the way it is consumed. Song remains adamantly offline, relying on the "Four Pillars of Destiny" astrology …
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