[[such as giving life to an image so that it speaks, etc]]
Ai and such are already animating things like old,photos where the person in photo moves, smiles, winces, or whatever, moves .their mouths etc, and appears to be alive and speaking.
The mark though as you point out will be a “pledge of obedience to, and worship of, the beast” and will be required to receive the mark. But, the who’s proposal could very well be a precursor to the mark, and will be a proto- version of it I that it will restrict or allow buying and selling, breaking people financially. Making them desperate enough that they will consent to taking tha mark just to feed their families and be able to freely move about without persecution.
John used the understanding of words current at the time. In the Bible, an image is a pre-existing, known physical object.