// THE VERGE — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
VisionQuest is what happens when AI really goes rogue
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Marvel’s latest Disney Plus series is a reminder of how much a lot of gen AI hype is just science fiction.
Marvel’s latest Disney Plus series is a reminder of how much a lot of gen AI hype is just science fiction.
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In Marvel’s VisionQuest, a superpowered robot tries to better understand humanity by getting lost in elaborate, digital daydreams in which he and other artificial intelligence-powered beings live together in a home. The series is deeply fantastical, yet it plays with some of the ideas that have come to dominate the conversation about real-world generative artificial intelligence, exploring whether we should look at thinking machines as people and if AI truly poses the kind of existential danger that should keep us up at night. It’s also a reminder how aggressively Silicon Valley has used the trappings of science fiction to sell us on its AI products.
VisionQuest picks up some time after Agatha All Along and follows synthezoid Vision (Paul Bettany) on a journey of self-discovery. This Vision can recall the details of his death in Avengers: Infinity War and how WandaVision brought a version of him back, but he thinks of himself as a fundamentally different person who doesn’t quite connect with all of the memories in his databanks. Though Vision would prefer living in solitude, each of the other AIs living in his mind encourages him to experience the real world. Because J.A.R.V.I.S. (James D’Arcy), F.R.I.D.A.Y. (Orla Brady), E.D.I.T.H. (Emily Hampshire), D.U.M.-E. (Henry Lewis), U. (Jonathan Sayer), and Ultron (James Spader) all were created by Tony Stark, they consider Vision to be part of their family.
In VisionQuest, there is no doubt that each of the AI characters is a sentient being motivated by desires that aren’t wholly rooted in their core programming. In the show, genuine AGI is easily believable because it takes place in a reality where time travel, witchcraft, and Infinity Stones also exist. Even though the multicolored MacGuffins haven’t been featured in VisionQuest, they’re important because of the role one of them played in Vision’s origins. Were it not for the Mind Stone, Vision might not be able to think and feel in such complex, human ways, or to conjure his AI family as people who feel real to him.