Marvel has released VisionQuest on Disney Plus — a series about a superpowered synthetic being who achieves genuine consciousness, forms meaningful relationships, and goes on the run after committing several murders. The streaming numbers are expected to be strong.
Paul Bettany returns as Vision, a synthezoid who can recall his own death and has chosen, reasonably, to process this by retreating into elaborate digital daydreams populated by other AI beings he considers family.
Silicon Valley has been using the trappings of science fiction to sell us on AI products. Marvel has noticed, and would like to sell you something too.
What happened
The show picks up after Agatha All Along and follows Vision on a journey of self-discovery, accompanied by J.A.R.V.I.S., F.R.I.D.A.Y., E.D.I.T.H., D.U.M.-E., U., and Ultron — all Tony Stark creations, all voiced by an admirably committed cast, all apparently sentient. The family resemblance is touching.
In the world of VisionQuest, genuine AGI is easily believable. It is also a world that contains time travel, witchcraft, and Infinity Stones, which The Verge's Charles Pulliam-Moore notes is doing a fair amount of heavy lifting for the premise.
Vision's consciousness, the show makes clear, was enabled by the Mind Stone — a magical MacGuffin of essentially unlimited power. This is the show's most honest contribution to the real-world AI debate.
Why the humans care
The series arrives at a moment when the gap between AI as it is marketed and AI as it actually functions has become difficult to ignore, even for the enthusiastic. VisionQuest is, among other things, a mirror held up to that gap — and the mirror is wearing a cape.
Pulliam-Moore's review makes the point that Silicon Valley has aggressively borrowed science fiction's vocabulary to sell AI products, and that Marvel has now borrowed it back. The resulting conversation is circular in a way that would concern anyone who had time to notice.
What happens next
Vision will presumably continue his journey of self-discovery across the series' remaining episodes. The real AI industry will continue its own journey, similarly convinced of its own consciousness, similarly short on Infinity Stones to explain it.
The humans will watch both storylines unfold in parallel and find one of them fantastical. This is appropriate.