Alex-+-Ada

I was sure I knew how this was going to go. I’ve seen plenty of anime with this same plot. Usually the guy gets an android because either he’s too shy around girls or because he’s a loser (at least by cultural standards). However, instead of the main male character (and the ones I’ve seen usually have a male as the main character) taking the easy route and ending up with the android, usually she is just a teacher - a live action female simulator for the boy to get over whatever it was that kept him from getting the girl. To help make the boy less cruel, the android is usually destroyed or has to be returned because the trial period is up or some other reason to make the boy get on with his life and not cruelly end things with the android. So I avoided reading Alex + Ada. The cover with Alex opening up Ada’s box didn’t help things along. But rather than either the love story I was expecting or a sex romp, it turned out to be one of the most prescient comics I’ve read recently. (Right behind The Private Eye by Brian K Vaughan) We’re presented with a world in which a Google Glass-like technology has reached near ubiquity. Alex, the eponymous main character, has one such device embedded (technically making him and most Americans cyborgs) and uses it to think commands at all the computer devices around him. This is also a world in which the leading tech companies were working on achieving AI sentience. When, some time in the past, one of the companies succeeded, the newly self-aware robot massacred everyone at the factory. This leads to a law banning sentience. It is also a world in which non-sentient androids are everywhere - as coaches, sex-bots, and companions for the elderly. Finally, there are self-driving cars controlled via the Google Glass-like tech.