"Profound, karmic, intense"

Controversial opinion: I think you should use ChatGPT for astrology.

Rationale:

1. We're in its heyday (ChatGPT's, I mean)

2. It actually does understand astrological concepts and principles

3. It's free

4. You can read a lot of books and spend a bajillion hours learning, but I only had the time to devote to that because I was psychologically wrecked and wanted an enormous distraction back when I learned. Or you can ask the computer.

This is still not a substitute for critical thinking and using your eyeballs to figure out where things are in your chart. At a minimum, you have to learn to do this: learn which planet is which, which sign is which, and where those each fall in YOUR chart. That way you can describe what's where and if it spits out something that is patently wrong, you should be able to identify it immediately.

Here's what ChatGPT is good for:

A basic understanding of the transits you have going if you can figure out what those are. If you can give it (something like) the following prompt:

"Describe the effects of (transiting planet) in the (transiting house) (aspect)ing (natal planet in sign and house). (Transiting planet) rules (natal house) and natal planet rules (natal house)."

Then you'll get an okay read on the basics. It can also parse solar returns, but I recommend describing the placements rather than uploading anything, and it can't generate charts itself (and if it looks things up on the internet for you, god help you—that got me some weird-ass results).

The thing is, ChatGPT describes everything as profound and karmic and intense and will lean rather heavily on validating psychological language so you feel like a special flower with your astrology, which...humans do, also, but just beware that there's only so much "profound," "karmic," and "intense"  (or whatever keywords it spits out at you) a person can have. It kept saying I'm in a "crucible" because my transits and progressions suck right now. I am having my ass handed to me, but believe it or not I prefer things to be less dramatic, especially coming from a computer.

ChatGPT is so very bad at:

Time. Timing. Knowing where planets are right now. It keeps telling me that Neptune's about to enter Aries and things will change then! and I want to yell "it's in Aries and so I can knowledgeably say you are wrong, computer!" Last week it told me Saturn will be in Pisces for another year and a half (it leaves Pisces in February).

It is also bad at the big picture and sometimes misses the forest for the trees, but if you are describing specific planets and specific aspects ("what would Saturn in the 3rd house conjunct Mercury mean in a solar return chart?") you'll get decent answers. You can check your own logic and argue with it, like "Neptune in the 6th by transit is doing the following things, right?" At several points, it has weighed the presence of planets in a stellium incorrectly or omitted critical factors from natal placements or transits that would scream at a human who's been doing these things a while. And it always defaulted to asking me if I wanted to know *when* my transits would hit, and we already talked about the fact that it doesn't know what time it is (at one point it made me a chart of upcoming transits and said things will occur in 2029 that happen next year). And as I mentioned, it made some bonkers assumptions that you'd know were wrong by simply using your eyes. Last week it told me that planets in the 6th house were opposite planets in the 7th house (which is physically impossible). ChatGPT understands geometry, doesn't it? It's mostly right, but when it's wrong, it's extremely wrong.

ChatGPT will NOT make you good at astrology. Regularly doing astrology (and doing it badly) will get you good at astrology...eventually. But if you want an answer as to basically how something works, ChatGPT will tell you. I like anything that makes astrology more accessible to people because it helps you to both know yourself and grow as a person.

I will also say that I, the air sign, use it to check my own logic for myself rather than make another human's eyes water by explaining my latest theory in excruciating detail. I am big on figuring out correct uses for energy and what transits are trying to make me do or change, and it's great for that. I need someone to say "no, Pluto is not trying to kill your spirit" to me because I often feel that it is, and a person hasn't said this to me yet (they usually agree with me), so I will take a computer doing it instead.