It's not enough to ask what the technology does — we must understand who it's doing it for and who it's doing it to.
As we enter the age of AI, we are in danger of being reduced to what Cory Doctorow dubs the ‘reverse centaur’. With that term he conjures a human being conscripted as the assistant to a dominant machine. It could be a driver made to deliver nonstop, all day long; a warehouse worker packing shelves without bathroom or food breaks; or a programmer reviewing impossible amounts of AI-produced code.
Don't fall for the hype! The billionaires managing the rise of AI are putting on a command performance for the bosses and investors, not for the ordinary people who might use the products. When this latest tech bubble bursts, will there be something useful for us in the wreckage?
In The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, Doctorow examines why we find ourselves in this mess and how we can get out of it. Life after AI should mean the tools work for us, not the other way around.
From the author of Enshittification. Note: this is not an anti-AI screed — Doctorow uses AI in his own work every day. His target is the revenue model and the bubble it has created.
Praise
“Cory Doctorow is the most lucid and generous guide I know of, and this book — ostensibly about AI, but more broadly about the new world of hyper-capitalism and high tech — is stunning in its clarity and breadth of vision. In trying to keep some kind of grasp on what is going on in the world, I read Doctorow obsessively.” — Brian Eno
“A vivid and entertaining polemic on the economics of the tech revolution, filled with righteous ire.” — Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian
“There are already a lot of books about AI, with more on the way. Consider this one to be mandatory reading. It's lively, entertaining, angry, wry, passionate, and vastly informative.” — Booklist
“A sharply worded, irreverent, and deadly serious call to see through the sleight-of-hand performance of AI promoters.” — Kirkus Reviews
About the author
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of Enshittification, Walkaway, Little Brother and many other books, and a longtime special adviser to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
240 pages · Hardback · Verso Books · Cover design: David A Gee
