Dream Machine: A Portrait of Artificial Intelligence

Scientist Daudet and artist Appupen join forces to explore the questions surrounding generative AI in their muddled graphic narrative debut. In a sleek near future, computer scientist Hugo is hired by a shady corporation called REAL to work on an AI-driven “immortality game.” While Hugo enthuses that it’s “springtime in AI land,” his partner, Anna, reminds him of the ethical concerns and his artist friend rails against scraping images from the web without artists’ consent and jobs lost to bots. The loosely sketched plot serves as a springboard for lessons on large language model tech and related social, environmental, and ethical issues. The art is not particularly impressive; in one running bit, Hugo imagines himself as a computer-science superhero, but the layouts too frequently fall back on bland talking-head sequences. For all the ballyhoo about generative AI’s vast potential, the real-life applications depicted are almost comically modest: summarizing emails, responding to Yelp reviews, writing generic ad copy. Though the creators’ refusal to embrace easy answers is admirable, their unwillingness to take a strong stance on the use of generative AI beyond noting its inevitability frustrates. As a final experiment, Daudet cowrites the final chapter with ChatGPT, allowing the program to outline possible endings. Like the rest of the book, the results are readable but uninspiring. (Aug.)