Commentary: Marvels VisionQuest makes AI feel dangerously human

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Set us as preferred This story contains spoilers for the season finale of “VisionQuest.”“VisionQuest,” the latest extension of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ended Tuesday with the studio’s signature combination of finale and cliffhanger (this one requiring not one but two post-credits scenes).Having owned all of his various versions, including the one conjured by his late wife, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), in “WandaVision,” Vision (Paul Bettany) has become as close to human as a synthezoid can get, complete with two human (and superpowered) sons, Tommy (Ruaridh Mollica) and Billy (Joe Locke).

Reveling in his own liberation, Vision releases Ultron (James Spader), along with all the various AI programs who spent the series congregating in Vision’s head, back into the wild to do what they will.The internet (which we frequently speak of as if it were a living entity) is already ablaze with burning questions.

Does the second post-credits scene of Wanda’s resurrection by Doctor Doom preface a full-family conflict/reunion in the upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday”? Will Ultron skip his proposed visit to the Louvre to resurrect both his AI love interest Jocasta (T’Nia Miller) and her original plan to conquer the world? Can the perky morality of E.D.I.T.H.(Emily Hampshire) keep former brutal mercenary Paladin (Todd Stashwick) on the straight and narrow? Is J.A.R.V.I.S.

(James D’Arcy) really “dead” or can he, like F.R.I.D.A.Y.(Orla Brady) somehow reverse his apparent deletion and return to us once more? But here’s what I want to know: By populating “VisionQuest” with a host of attractively anthropomorphized AI systems, did creator Terry Matalas wind up making an eight-episode Disney+ infomercial for data centers? Television The Maximoff twins are finally reunited in the ‘VisionQuest’ fin...