The search for supernatural activities has begun to incorporate artificial intelligence to analyze signals and create images of ghosts. The arrival of these tools, however, has divided opinions among paranormal investigation enthusiasts.
While some researchers adopt apps that transform data from phone sensors into images, others question the reliability and ethics of the technology, as well as its impacts on the human dimension of this activity.
The arrival of AI in paranormal investigation rekindles debates about reliability, copyrights, and influence on beliefs. – Image created by artificial intelligence: Gemini/Olhar Digital
Apps turn phone signals into images
Researchers Amy Waine and Jarrad Cutting created GhostTube Seer, presented by the duo as the first artificial intelligence-based ghost-hunting app. Released in 2023, the service uses mobile phone magnetometers to capture magnetic signals, identify words and expressions associated with them, and feed an image generator.
Available with a monthly subscription, the app has surpassed 1 million downloads, according to its Google Play Store page.Users can also share the images produced in a feed and comment on other people’s posts.
In an investigation filmed at the Winchester Mystery House for Amy’s Crypt on YouTube, Waine and Cutting used the tool to generate images of possible areas of the residence, human figures, and animals. The duo interpreted the results as possible references to the property’s history.
Another example is Spirit Phone Innovations, an app launched by paranormal investigator Sean Austin, who participated in a series about ghost hunting on Travel Channel. The tool uses AI to analyze audio signals in search of electronic voice phenomena (EVP), a traditional practice in this type of investigation.
Artificial intelligence is also used to analyze recordings in search of electronic voice phenomena, known as EVPs. – Image created by artificial intelligence: Gemini/Olhar Digital
Resistance and questions about the use of AI
The popularization of these tools comes amid the proliferation of artificially generated supernatural stories and images on the internet. Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, this type of content gained traction, leading communities such as the r/Nosleep subreddit, dedicated to horror stories, to establish strict rules against AI-produced material.
Paranormal researcher and author Alex Matsuo, who also works in the technology sector, tried GhostTube Seer when it launched but maintains a skeptical stance.For her, the main issue is understanding what information feeds the systems used to identify alleged supernatural manifestations.
“If you are using AI, you are using some kind of large language model. What data is the system being trained on to determine what a ghost is?”, she asked The Guardian.
Among the concerns raised by Matsuo are:
- Copyright: the possibility of generative tools using protected works to produce their own images.
- Belief bubbles: the risk of chatbots creating environments in which users repeatedly reinforce their convictions about paranormal phenomena.
Distrust of technological innovations, however, did not begin with artificial intelligence. Matsuo recalls that attempts to investigate the supernatural have accompanied other innovations, such as Thomas Edison’s experiments with a spiritual telephone to try to contact the dead and the photographs of spirits produced in the 19th and 20th centuries, alongside the development of new photographic techniques.
For the researcher, the human dimension must remain at the center of paranormal investigation. Many people enter this realm after facing trauma or losing someone close to them. The search for answers about the unknown, she says, is often linked to these experiences.
The relationship between technology and the supernatural also appears in another episode involving the preservation of places associated with ghost stories.In Pennsylvania, an old asylum that housed a famous horror attraction was sold in late 2025 to a data center development company. The plan was to demolish the building, but local residents rallied and managed to stop the project in May.
Valdir Antonelli is a journalist specializing in digital marketing and consumer behavior.
