When AI Meets I Ching: When the Aesthetics of Brute-Force Computation Meets Three Millennia of Abstract Wisdom

“Isn’t the I Ching just feudal superstition?”

Let’s not jump to conclusions. Let’s first examine the logic.

Here’s a key. Before you know it’s a “master key” that can open countless doors, would you be interested in studying its internal structure and principles? Probably not. Because it’s irrelevant to you.

Now, let’s turn our attention to history and see what really happened.

Confucius’s Last Years: “Worn Out Three Bindings” for the I Ching

A confirmed historical fact is that Confucius, the founder of Confucianism, expressed this sentiment in his later years: “If I could have a few more years, and studied the ‘I Ching’ at fifty, I would be free from great errors.” (If I had studied the I Ching a few years earlier, I would have made far fewer major mistakes in my life.)

The famous idiom “worn out three bindings” refers to Confucius’s repeated study of the “I Ching” in the last years of his life, to the point where the leather thongs binding the bamboo slips broke several times. Ultimately, he wrote the seminal commentary on the “I Ching”—the “Ten Wings.”

Now, let’s go back to the original logic: If this “key” were unremarkable, would a sage like Confucius, at the peak of his life’s wisdom, invest such enormous energy in studying it?

The answer is clearly no.

The “I Ching” must have played a crucial role in Confucius’s life, touching and even astonishing him with its unique functionality or philosophical depth, making him willing to dedicate the last years of his life to annotating it. Behind this, there must be a powerful logic.

A Three-Thousand-Year-Old “Support Vector Machine”: The Brutal Beauty Beyond Computing Power

You might ask, what does this have to do with modern technology? Especially what I mentioned: “AI + I Ching.”

Let’s first look at AI. What is the core of today’s large language models (LLMs), be it GPT or other models? It’s reasoning. And what is the principle of reasoning? It’s the brutal beauty of computing power based on massive pre-trained data. We invest countless GPUs, using brute-force computation to position each word and concept in a precise coordinate in a super high-dimensional space.

For example, the word “queen,” after being processed by the model, might have a precise point in an 1100-dimensional space. Knowing this point, we can calculate its distance from words like “king,” “female,” and “power” in the vector space, thereby understanding their complex relationships. This is the triumph of computing power.

So, the question arises, three thousand years ago, when King Wen of Zhou interpreted the “I Ching,” did he have computing power? Not even a single chip. Following this logic, how could the “I Ching” without computing power possibly explain everything and gain insight into the universe?

But here, I want to introduce a fascinating concept from the field of machine learning: Support Vector Machine (SVM).

The marvel of SVM is that it doesn’t use any graphics cards for brute-force computation. Instead, through clever mathematical techniques, it smartly bypasses complex calculations and directly provides classification results in a high-dimensional space—it also achieves high-dimensional mapping.

Isn’t this a “victory of abstraction”?

So, we can say that today’s large models rely on brute-force computing power to provide the precise coordinates of all things in the world within a vector space. But we cannot therefore assert that the ancients three thousand years ago did not, through another means—excellent abstract ability—likewise perceive the approximate direction and projection of things in the cosmic space.

The “Yi” in “I Ching” means change. Perhaps the ancients, by observing the changes in all things, used a kind of abstract black box that we cannot imagine today to summarize a set of rules. This set of rules, like SVM, without brute-force computation, still projected a high-dimensional wisdom.

A Book That Attracts Geniuses: From the Father of Binary to the Master of Psychology

Historically, Confucius was far from the only one attracted to the “I Ching.”

1. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: This mathematician, co-equal with Newton and inventor of binary, was greatly astonished when he first saw the sixty-four hexagrams of the “I Ching” in 1701. He discovered that the sixty-four hexagrams formed by the yin lines (—) and yang lines (—) of the “I Ching” perfectly corresponded to his binary mathematical structure. Leibniz was the only Western scientific giant who was not attracted by the “I Ching“‘s “divination” function, but was deeply impressed by its profound mathematical and philosophical structure.
2. Carl Jung: This master of modern psychology introduced the “I Ching” into psychotherapy. When patients were confused, Jung would have them cast hexagrams and, based on the results of the hexagrams, combined with the patient’s subconscious and psychological state, provide guidance. He believed the “I Ching” was a tool for exploring “synchronicity,” which could help people connect with their deepest intuition.

Besides these, musicians have used it to compose music, and even the director of “Blade Runner” once used it to decide the plot direction of his film.

You will find that the “I Ching” is far from being a purely divinatory tool. It’s more like a catalyst, a framework of wisdom that resonates with geniuses in different fields.

In the Age of AI, How Can We Best Use the “I Ching”?

After all this, how should we ordinary people use it?

The original text of the “I Ching,” such as “The arrogant dragon will have cause to repent” or “It is advantageous to meet the great man,” is obscure and difficult for modern people to understand. But now, we have the strongest tool for “interpreting the classics”—AI large language models.

This is precisely the power of the “AI + I Ching” combination:

1. Massive Information Input: We can feed the original text of the “I Ching,” Confucius’s “Ten Wings” commentary, interpretations by famous scholars throughout history, and even modern psychological analyses, all into the large language model.
2. Inject Your Context: The most crucial step is to also tell the AI your specific question, the background information behind the question, and your personal situation and confusion.
3. AI Becomes Your “Hexagram Interpretation Think Tank”: When there is enough information, the AI understands you well enough. What it can do is, based on the hexagram you obtain, combine all the knowledge bases from ancient times to the present and your personal circumstances, to conduct a thorough “brainstorm” for you, enumerating all possible interpretations and perspectives.

It won’t give you a black-and-white answer, because the “I Ching” itself is not meant for buying lottery tickets or asking “will it rain tomorrow?” It provides a direction, an enlightenment, a powerful psychological suggestion.

Just like the commentary on the “Qian” hexagram: “As heaven maintains its vigor through movement, so must a superior person strive for self-improvement without cease.”

Winners use it to make themselves stronger; those who are lost use it to give themselves determination.

The role AI plays here is to help you “understand,” to translate ancient wisdom into actionable guides that you can understand and that are closely related to your current situation.

Conclusion: Don’t Easily Dismiss the Wisdom of Our Ancestors

You might question it, saying that this is something created by ancient people who didn’t have enough food or warm clothes, and we, in the 21st century, shouldn’t still believe in it.

But I want to say that the human brain three thousand years ago is essentially no different from our brain today. Their capacity for abstraction might even be stronger than ours. What we have more of is just computing power.

At life’s crossroads, when you feel lost and uncertain, using the “AI + I Ching” tool to ask questions and listen might not give you standard answers, but it will certainly give you strength.

Because this “first of all classics,” passed down for thousands of years, is itself a book of wisdom about change, a philosophical sublimation about how to conduct oneself in life.