AI really appeals to a fantasy that I think all of us have to some extent but that powerful people really have, of a world without people in it—because hell really is other people.
This. The AI industry is pushing super hard to make it work, to replace human workers. It’s failing, as AI work is crappier than human work and costs way, way more than human work, but there’s that Ayn Rand fantasy that the ownership class can just shut out the worker class and create an utopia.
I’m reminded of the car factory in which the upper management fired the striking workers assuming they could do the work themselves, only to find that the unskilled labor actually took skill.
No, hell is loneliness and that’s what humanity gets if it goes down the Ai / dystopian route. We can see in China today how people are suffering from loneliness despite having tech to order food and items and having them delivered in hours.
‘If you are looking for hell, ask the artist where it is. If you don’t find the artist, you are already in hell.’ -Avigdoor Pawsner
I’m a simple man. I see Cory, I upvote. Then I read the text.
Reverse centaur? Lol? I need to come back to this later
centaur = brain of a man, speed of a horse.
reverse centaur = brain of a horse, speed of a man.substitute horse with ai.
Good practical examples are the car driver vs the Amazon driver. When you drive a car, you go where you want, but at the superhuman speed of a car. The Amazon driver has a computer telling them where to go, how to drive there, and even cameras to watch if you drive according to Amazon’s rules. The driver has become the extension of the computer, instead of the other way around. That’s a reverse centaur.
Over a long enough distance, men can outrun a horse. Especially in heat.
Who’s in heat, the horse or the man?
I don’t like where this is going, but I approve it.
Yes
I think the bigger question is why the man is running after a horse in heat. That is not how you make a centaur.
not with that attitude
Ooooh! I’ve got a thing for this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon
My friend runs it each year. His pictures are nuts
Practically, better described as endurance, although technically correct.
Thank you kindly friend
He published a transcript of a speech where he goes over a summary of the book that’s worth a read https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/pop-that-bubble/#u-washington
If you’ve read this post or kept up with his blog occasionally the book treads familiar grounds. I sill think it’s worth the read to have a condensed version.
Doctorow guides you through understanding the AI bubble by proving you don’t need to know the technical jargon or latest developments. All you need to have as a guiding framework is “what technology (actually) does and who it does it to.”
You can also buy and download books / audiobooks from his website https://craphound.com/ some of them are pay as you want.
For those wondering, the ebooks for Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free, With a Little Help from My Friends, and Context are pay what you’d like.
My friend was blathering on about Cory Doctorow two decades ago and I knew the name, had maybe read a little bit. I was kind of annoyed how ofter he brought him up. Man did he come out ahead of me on that. This guy articulates the ills of society so well.
He really should have called it a “Minotaur” instead of a “reverse-centaur”.
I couldn’t get through Enshittification. It was like reading a reference book after the first half. That said, I look forward to this one.
I like how Doctorow is taking guardianship for his language through no bullshit tolerance.
Just start buying AI from Chinese companies. Cancel your anthropic and chatgpt - they will suffocate quickly.
Top tip: Getting computer-generated wrong answers in Chinese is just as useful as getting computer-generated wrong answers in English.
You don’t even have to read Chinese!
Well gemini once put some helpful comments in a code sample it produced for me. The comments were in Korean for some reason.
Or buy Chinese AI hosted on non us non chinese hardware.
