{"slug": "how-to-burst-the-ai-bubble-strike-at-its-roots", "title": "How to burst the AI bubble: Strike at its roots", "summary": "Cory Doctorow's new book 'The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI' argues that the AI industry is creating 'reverse centaurs'—humans serving as appendages to machines—rather than augmenting human capabilities. Doctorow criticizes the trend of using AI to replace workers while leaving them responsible for errors, as seen in examples like Amazon delivery drivers monitored by AI and radiologists reduced to checking AI diagnoses.", "body_md": "Last year, we featured a [lengthy interview](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/yes-everything-online-sucks-now-but-it-doesnt-have-to/) with tech journalist/science fiction author [Cory Doctorow](https://craphound.com) about his book, * Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It.* The prolific Doctorow is back with a provocative new book that serves as a follow-up of sorts, focusing on AI and related issues:\n\n[.](https://www.amazon.com/Reverse-Centaurs-Guide-After-Intelligence-Before-ebook/dp/B0GBZFWCTT)\n\n*The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI*Doctorow doesn’t actually enjoy talking about AI, but he’s constantly being asked to comment on it. “I made the tactical error of being sick of talking about AI,” Doctorow told Ars. “So I wrote a book about why I think it’s a dumb thing to keep asking people to talk about, and now I have to talk about it.” *Reverse Centaur* is Doctorow’s attempt to “sort out the bullshit from the material reality.”\n\nIn automation theory, per Doctorow, a “centaur” describes a human augmented with a technology, like machine learning, or even just driving a car or using autocomplete. A reverse centaur “is a machine head on a human body, a person who is serving as a squishy meat appendage for an uncaring machine,” [Doctorow said](https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/pop-that-bubble/#u-washington) in a speech last December. He gave the example of an Amazon delivery driver, surrounded by AI cameras monitoring their driving, who essentially serves as a peripheral to the delivery van.\n\nBeing a centaur is generally viewed as a positive thing; few people relish being a reverse centaur. And yet the AI industry seems intent on using those tools to create more reverse centaurs. It’s one thing to incorporate AI tools into the medical field to help radiologists process X-ray images and spot potential tumors they might otherwise miss. It’s quite another to fire nine out of 10 radiologists and let AI make the diagnoses, with the remaining radiologist solely responsible for checking the AI’s work—and, ultimately, taking the blame for any errors.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/how-to-burst-the-ai-bubble-strike-at-its-roots", "canonical_source": "https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/how-to-burst-the-ai-bubble-strike-at-its-roots/", "published_at": "2026-06-23 12:00:34+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-23 23:47:08.902433+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-ethics", "ai-policy", "ai-safety", "ai-research"], "entities": ["Cory Doctorow", "Amazon", "Ars Technica", "University of Washington"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/how-to-burst-the-ai-bubble-strike-at-its-roots", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/how-to-burst-the-ai-bubble-strike-at-its-roots.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/how-to-burst-the-ai-bubble-strike-at-its-roots.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/how-to-burst-the-ai-bubble-strike-at-its-roots.jsonld"}}