Terrorbytes #4: Brace for It

Terrorbytes #4 takes another swipe at AI’s growing influence on humanity. The entry point is “Secondself,” an AI program that can use data inputs to duplicate a real person. Everything starts innocently enough–internet influencer Mr. Brace, never satisfied with the performance of human assistants, is going to use AI to answer calls, respond to emails, generate thumbnails, and other such tasks Brace doesn’t have time for.

The problem with the Secondself Mr. Brace comes when it determines that the best way to keep the real Mr. Brace happy is to lie to him. The program has learned enough to know what Brace wants to hear. Terrorbytes #4 plays up the humor in this situation, dark though it is. But the story plays into the greater questions about AI, namely its ability to learn. It doesn’t take long before Brace and his general manager stop questioning what the Secondself Brace says it is doing because it is so in keeping with the real Brace’s desires and personality. And because Brace himself doesn’t seem like a particularly well-balanced, mature individual, the things that make him happy veer into the disturbing. His U-Tube channel is built around paying people to do stupid things. The more extreme they are, the better Brace likes it. When Secondself Brace seemingly sets up a “let yourself be crucified and win a million dollars” video for Easter, the real Brace loves it.

London fleshes the story in Terrorbytes #4 out further by connecting the idea of a purposefully deceptive AI to a general incuriosity about what technology is doing and how it’s doing it. Despite the comically bizarre nature of what Secondself Brace says it’s doing, the real Brace and his general manager don’t question it at all–even when confronted by an educated coworker explaining how what the Secondself Brace is doing is impossible, they believe the computer is smarter.

The two versions of Brace are at the center of Terrorbytes #4’s story, and they’re usually mirror reflections of each other. Both Braces’ features are slightly out of proportion relative to the issue’s other characters. His eyes are wider, and his mouth looks just a little too elongated. The characters’ appearance feels most unusual when they are smiling. The two Braces’ strange ideas feel at home in a character whose default appearance is maniacal.

Halvorson makes the other two major characters, general manager Jonah and lawyer Hailey, equally expressive but more in line with a typical human appearance. Much of their expressive detail comes around their eyes with subtle changes, in shape and surrounding lines, helping to delineate emotions.

Coloring throughout Terrorbytes leans toward the drab. The surroundings are often centered around browns or grays. Halvorson reserves more jump-off-the-page color choices for the two Braces and the assorted video thumbnails that make up several panels throughout the issue. It’s Brace’s world and everyone else is just living in it.

Mangual has a greater volume of text on his plate to deal with in Terrorbytes #4 than in the series’ previous issues. The story plays out almost entirely in dialogue with Halvorson carrying very little purely in art. Mangual does a good job keeping everything organized in the text heavy sequences. These most often feature one or both of the Braces, and Mangual is able to keep the dialogue bubbles out of the way of the creepy main characters.