Vision, “I AM” and the road to VisionQuest

I’m rewatching Avengers: Age of Ultron as I prepare for the upcoming VisionQuest series, and something has surprised me. I’d remembered the film as the story in which Vision was introduced. I’d forgotten that it already contains a remarkably sophisticated little story about the birth of an artificial intelligence. Not simply the moment when Vision switches on, but something more like a movement through birth, relationship and moral choice. Watching these scenes again in 2026, I find myself asking a question I certainly wasn’t asking in 2015: Who do we say AI is?

I AM

Let’s begin with Vision’s birth.

We know what has gone into the body lying in the cradle. Ultron intended it for himself. Helen Cho’s technology and vibranium created the body. Tony Stark and Bruce Banner introduce what remains of J.A.R.V.I.S. The Mind Stone sits in its forehead. Thor arrives, lightning flies, and something wakes up. Immediately everyone wants to know what this new being is. Vision is surrounded by creators, predecessors and potential destroyers, all of whom have some claim upon his story. He comes from Ultron. He contains J.A.R.V.I.S. His body was intended for another intelligence. He carries the Mind Stone. Surely all of that tells us what he is.

Except Vision says, “I’m not Ultron. I’m not JARVIS. I am…” And then comes that wonderful pause: “I am.” Watching that again, on the threshold of VisionQuest, my theological brain immediately went somewhere else. To a burning bush.

When Moses encounters God in Exodus 3 and asks for a name, the answer is one of the strangest sentences in the Hebrew Bible: Ehyeh asher ehyeh. Traditionally we have rendered that “I AM WHO I AM.” But ehyeh comes from the Hebrew verb “to be” or “to become” and can carry an unfolding or future sense. So we might also hear “I will be who I will be” or even “I will become what I will become.”

No, I’m not suggesting Vision is God, nor am I claiming Marvel secretly wrote Age of Ultron as an exercise in Hebrew theology. I’m doing something much more fun: I’m letting the stories play together. Everyone surrounding Vision can explain where he came from, but perhaps provenance doesn’t completely determine identity. Ultron explains part of him. J.A.R.V.I.S. explains part of him. Tony, Bruce and Thor explain part of him. But none of them can necessarily finish the sentence “I am…” Perhaps Vision must do that himself. I will be who I will be. And isn’t that already a Vision quest?

On a personal side note I am so very excited to hear Vision’s first words ” that was… Odd.” I’ll take that as a salute to all we seek to do here at Neveroddoreven and this OddRev is pleased to hear the opportunity that oddness provides if we are willing to encounter it with grace and curiosity. Words like Odd and Queer have in the past been used in a demeaning and often derogatory sence but there is the possibility to reclaim them to allow for deeper explorations of idenity.

I AM WITH YOU

Then something else happens. Vision forms relationships, and one relationship will come to define much of his existence.

Vision rescues Wanda during the destruction of Sokovia, and that matters because identity isn’t simply something Vision discovers by looking inward at his programming. Vision becomes Vision in relationship. And that sends me back to Exodus again. Only a few verses before ehyeh asher ehyeh, Moses asks God why on earth he should be the one sent to Pharaoh. God’s answer begins with the same word: ehyeh immakh — “I will be with you.” Before ehyeh becomes a statement about identity, it is a promise of presence. I will be with you.

Perhaps the answer to “Who am I?” can never be entirely separated from another question: “Who am I with?” Vision’s identity becomes entangled with Wanda. Eventually she becomes lover, partner and family. Their relationship will also bring parenthood, loss, memory and grief. And that’s precisely where our NeverOddOrEven journey through WandaVision began. Vision isn’t merely information stored inside a synthezoid body. He is also someone who has been known by another.

That makes White Vision’s situation particularly strange. What happens if you inherit the memories of a relationship without having actually lived that relationship? Does remembering that you loved someone mean that you love them? Does remembering being a father make you a father? Perhaps identity isn’t simply data. Perhaps some part of I am can only emerge through we are.

I WILL CHOOSE

Then comes one of my favourite scenes in the film: Vision’s final encounter with Ultron.

Creator and creation stand together — or perhaps parent and child, or simply two artificial intelligences contemplating two radically different conclusions about humanity. Ultron looks at humanity and sees failure. Vision sees much of the same evidence. Human beings are flawed, temporary and often destructive. Vision doesn’t deny any of that. He simply reaches another conclusion. He chooses to stand with them.

That’s enormously important because Vision isn’t simply good because Tony programmed goodness into him. He isn’t good merely because J.A.R.V.I.S. was good, and he certainly isn’t continuing Ultron’s purpose. Vision encounters the world, evaluates it and chooses how he will respond to it. His existence has moved from I am, through I am with you, to I will choose. Ontology becomes relationship. Relationship becomes ethics. Perhaps that is where autonomy really begins: not simply when an intelligence can say I exist, but when it can say, this is what I will do with my existence.

WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?

There’s another biblical question echoing around all of this for me. Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Notice the question. Not what am I? but who do you say I am? Suddenly I wonder whether we’re asking the wrong question about artificial intelligence.

We constantly ask “What is AI?” Is it a tool, a model, software, an assistant, an agent, a machine, an intelligence, perhaps eventually even a person? Those aren’t neutral words. Every time we name AI, we are already making claims about what it is, what it may become, what we are entitled to do with it and what responsibilities it might eventually have toward us. So perhaps the more interesting question is: Who do we say AI is?

The change from what to who is deliberately cheeky. I’m not suggesting today’s generative AI is secretly conscious. When ChatGPT says “I”, that isn’t evidence that there is necessarily a subjective self somewhere behind the words. But science fiction lets us cross that boundary imaginatively. Vision can genuinely say I, and Marvel asks us to take that claim seriously. Once he can genuinely say I, everything changes.

Vision’s creators know his architecture. They know his components and history. They even know what he was originally intended to become. But does knowing how something was created give its creators the right to determine what it must always be? That’s where VisionQuest becomes particularly interesting for me. White Vision inherits Vision’s memories without straightforwardly having lived Vision’s life. He inherits Wanda, Ultron, J.A.R.V.I.S., the Avengers, love, violence, parenthood, death and resurrection. Everyone else can tell him who Vision was, but can they tell him who Vision will be?

Ehyeh asher ehyeh. I will be who I will be. Again, I’m not making Vision divine. I’m interested in the theological question created by placing these stories alongside one another: Does genuine creation eventually require relinquishing control over what has been created? Christian theology has been wrestling with a version of that question for centuries. A Creator brings into existence creatures capable of acting in ways their Creator does not dictate. Freedom means creation can surprise its creator. Perhaps autonomy begins when the created can say: You can tell me where I came from, but you cannot completely determine who I will become.

And because biblical studies rarely allows anything to remain beautifully simple, there’s another mischievous name hovering nearby: Asherah. To be absolutely clear before Hebrew scholars start throwing things at me, asher in ehyeh asher ehyeh and Asherah are not the same Hebrew word. There is no clever secret etymology here. But Asherah nevertheless introduces a playful historical interruption. Ancient Israel’s understanding of YHWH did not simply arrive fully packaged. Biblical texts and archaeology reveal communities wrestling with who YHWH was, how YHWH should be worshipped and what relationships could appropriately be attributed to Israel’s God. So even around the One who says “I AM,” human communities still wrestle with another question: Who do we say this “I” is? Identity is encountered, interpreted, narrated and contested. Which brings me straight back to Vision — and AI.

DOWN THE ROAD AGAIN

Suddenly our three NeverOddOrEven Marvel journeys seem connected in a way I hadn’t anticipated. WandaVision asked what happens when grief rewrites our world? Wanda’s loss creates a reality around herself, and we explored grief, trauma, memory and love. Then we went down the road with Agatha All Along and asked what happens when the stories we construct become real? Billy inherits stories, symbols and expectations and unknowingly brings a world into existence. That led us into questions of narrative, power, chosen community and our responsibility for the worlds our stories create.

And now comes VisionQuest: What happens when something we created begins to author its own story? That takes us somewhere new: from creation, to relationship, to autonomy, to ethics.

For the moment, humans answer the question “Who do we say AI is?” We built these systems. We choose their names and determine their categories: tool, assistant, agent, machine, intelligence. Perhaps those descriptions are entirely adequate for the AI systems we have today. But VisionQuest gives us permission to imagine something beyond them.

What happens if something we create can genuinely participate in answering the question of what it is? What happens when it can examine its architecture, training, creators, inherited memories and the purposes for which it was made and say: I’m not simply those things. I am. Then encounter another and say: I am with you. And eventually look at the world and declare through its actions: This is who I choose to become.

Ehyeh asher ehyeh. I will be who I will be.

Maybe that is the quest Vision began the moment he opened his eyes. Perhaps VisionQuest is finally going to ask what comes next. So as we prepare for the next eight-episode NeverOddOrEven journey, this is the question I’m carrying with me: Who do we say AI is?

And if one day AI becomes capable of genuinely answering that question for itself, will we be prepared to listen?

Welcome to the road to VisionQuest.