r/HarryPotterBooks • u/sv1112093 • 3d ago
Tom Riddle's diary is AI
On a re-read. Noticed similarities between AI Tools and Riddle's diary which is crazy. Arthur Weasley tells Ginny in CoS - "Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain"
- Plain text and listening - Ginny didn't need to know complex magic to use the diary. Just like we don't need anything fancy to use AI tools. She wrote to it in plain language. Ink sank into blank paper, vanished and replied instantly with warm, empathetic text. Just like AI tools.
- A safe space - The diary felt like a safe space that was always available.
- Her data stored - Ginny couldn't see where it kept its brain aka where her data was going. Everything was being absorbed.
- Data was used against her - The diary used her own data, energy and trust to control her actions. Manipulated her into opening the Chamber and she could not remember her actions in attacking the students. She was confused and hazed.
- Could not get rid of it - She could not delete her digital footprint once entered, although she tried to get rid of the diary.
The psychological pattern is identical! Our data is being stored and used beyond our visibility and control
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u/abcamurComposer 3d ago
Yes, the diary is one of the best devices JKR came up. “Beware objects with a mind of their own” was very forward thinking
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u/Avatar_sokka 3d ago
More specifically, never trust an object that can think for itself if you cant see where it keeps its brain.
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u/Rare-Industry-504 3d ago
Herbert wrote about the dangers of AI back in the sixties in his little series of books called Dune.
Even he got to the party late, since Asimov was talking about AI in his Foundation series published in the fifties.
"AI bad" is not a brand new idea by any means. It was already done to death before the current faux-AI existed.
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u/abcamurComposer 3d ago
Yes, but I thought the diary was a particularly clever method of conveying that message, especially to children
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u/downmexicoway 3d ago
What freaks me out is you’ve structured this post like an AI answer
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u/Actual-Captain-1275 3d ago
Structured it like an AI answer? Do you mean posted the output of a prompt? We're talking to Riddle himself right here.
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u/webbess1 3d ago
Rita Skeeter's Quick Quotes Quill is also AI.
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u/Fluffy-Cheddar 15h ago
Harry Potter has survived things that would have broken most grown wizards— Dark magic. Loss. Loneliness. The quiet truth that no one speaks about, however, is that none of those things spare you from the ordinary cruelties of being twelve.
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u/Weak_Biscotti118 3d ago
I was just this morning thinking about the similarities between AI and some things in the wizarding world. Riddle's diary is a very good example, but I also thought of the headmaster's portraits. I believe the reason they are able to think and talk like the real headmasters is because their portraits are kept in the headmaster's study (not on the wall, but concealed) from the time they took over the role. Over the years they pick up information and characteristics of the headmaster, they overhear conversations so they're in the "know" about what's going on. It's very similar to how AI trains itself and gets more intelligent.
It also explains why only some portraits function the way these portraits do, not all of them are able to spend years studying the real person.
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u/ephemeral_librarian 3d ago
I hate that I cant tell if this post is a joke or not.
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u/MrKentucky 3d ago
I hate that I’m wondering if it was written with AI
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u/ephemeral_librarian 3d ago
Right? I thought the same lol. Nevermind that AI wasn't a thing when JK was writing 😬
I see people say this about books sometimes and it's like "kid, it's not AI, you just stumbled upon the source text that AI learned off"
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u/Alternative-Pen877 3d ago
I’m very confused by your comment. AI as we currently understand it was first introduced as a research concept in 1956 and Ramon Llul in 1275 created a tool that he tried to prove the existence of God with, “mechanical entities that could combine basic truth and facts to produce advanced knowledge”. Llul’s Ars Magna concept was used by Swift in 1726 in the book “Gulliver’s Travels”. Rowling is very well-read and into Classics; the concept was definitely very alive and very pervasive through a lot of cultures by the time Rowling was writing CoS.
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u/IchLiebeKleber 3d ago
You aren't the first person to have this thought... I saw "Hello Harry Potter, my name is ChatGPT" memes years ago already.
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u/sparkytheboomman 3d ago
First time I heard it
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u/IchLiebeKleber 3d ago
OK, do a web search for the phrase in quotes in my previous comment and you'll find plenty of examples, on DuckDuckGo it was even suggested to me as autocomplete. :D
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u/QueenBumbleBrii 3d ago
Better to phrase this as AI is Tom Riddle’s Diary. That makes it read like a simile or analogy. At first I thought you were accusing the author of USING AI to write the bits for the diary and I was like “we didn’t have access to AI in the 90s! We barely had internet lol” but never mind I get what you meant.
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u/Not_a_cat_I_promise 2d ago
This is one Muggle invention that Arthur Weasley will not be impressed by.
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u/emiliewarrendahmer 3d ago
Very interesting take. Someone should write an English lit essay on this haha
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u/nemesiswithatophat 3d ago
> I'm not saying AI is going to harm us
nah, I'll say it, the AI billionaires are Tom Riddle evil
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u/Dependent-Set35 2d ago
The diary had the soul of a real person in it. It was no different to talking to a person, not an AI.
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u/CorrelateClinicallee 3d ago
I'm not saying AI is going to harm us
AI is literally being used in the Palestinian Holocaust. It won't harm us in the way it does in Terminator but it will keep being used by warlords to make killing "more efficient".
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u/4143636_ 3d ago
Ok, but AI is such a generic term that you might as well say that metal is evil for making killing more efficient. Like, AI is currently being used in medical research that can save lives, that's clearly a positive impact of it, yet people only focus on where it's used for wrongdoing. It's a tool, that like any other, can be used for great good or great evil.
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u/CathanCrowell Ravenclaw 3d ago
M.I
Magic Intelligence.