AI has been like rocket fuel for stocks, driving prices to record highs. Since October, though, that exuberance has been fading, as some realities of this transformative technology have begun to sink in, with investors growing worried that AI could render certain businesses obsolete. One area vulnerable to AI, noted The New York Times recently, are providers of "software-as-a-service," or SaaS, a mode of delivering subscription-based computer programs over the internet. Companies catering to the arts have been hit: Shares in Adobe, for instance, fell 9 percent in early February.

  Peter Kuper is, luckily, an artist who needs no introduction. I say this because his long and varied career is impossible to summarize in a paragraph. Whether celebrating his life-long fascination with the universe of bugs, in Insectopolis, or satirizing the political nature of human inhumanity in World War III Illustrated, Peter’s work begins with research—scientific, literary, political, psychological and you name it. For this reason, I asked him to share his...