In rural England in around 1541, if you had a minor ailment, had
lost an item or were in dispute with your beloved, you may approach
the local witch for assistance and hopefully a remedy. The method
of resolution may have been, or at least appeared supernatural and
beyond explanation or understanding to most folks. Unsurprisingly,
such 'cunning folk' were also accused of using their
magical powers for less helpful and rather more harmful ends,
resulting in the first of a number of witchcraft acts in the UK (a
full 300 years after Magna Carta, for legal context).
In current times, if you have a question about your health, want
more information on something or are trying to find out how to
solve a dispute, you are much more likely to simply ask an AI
system to tell you what to do. Such programs produce seemingly
impossibly good results, although if you ask the AI system how it
does it, it will tell you it is not down to magic, but scientific
principles.
