The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence—Before It’s Too Late

This lively report from journalist and novelist Doctorow (Enshittification) examines the hype around AI, encouraging people to make the technology work for them, not the other way around. In automation theory, he explains, centaurs are people assisted by machines (a person riding a bike or wearing a hearing aid), while reverse centaurs are those forced to act as assistants to a machine (an assembly line worker). This distinction is at the heart of the debate about the usefulness of AI tools, he argues, explaining that those who swear the tools are useless have had AI imposed upon them, while those who extol its utility are people who get to decide when and how to use it. AI companies, he asserts, have lured investors by overhyping the technology and using accounting gimmicks that inflate revenues. The “AI bubble” is destined to pop, he contends, predicting the economic fallout will rival the pandemic recession. On the bright side, he believes people will benefit from “a kind of AI residue” long after the bubble has burst—such as cheap, open-source models that run on personal computers and do things like transcription and image processing. Accessible and comprehensive, this is a useful guide to wading through the discourse around AI. (June)