The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI : How to Think About Artificial Intelligence—Before It's Too Late by Cory Doctorow
A short, provocative guide to what's good, bad, and stupid about AI and the discourse around AI, by the author of Enshittification.
In modern tech parlance, a centaur is a person who is able to use technology to be a better, more productive version of themself. A reverse centaur is a person who is forced by technology to work at an inhuman pace—a driver made to deliver all day long, nonstop; a warehouse worker made to work without food or bathroom breaks; a programmer made to crank out impossible amounts of code.
The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI is not another anti-AI screed. Cory Doctorow uses AI in his work every day. As a creative person, he has no moral or dogmatic issue with AI—he thinks the technology is useful, even exciting, and full of potential. And yet.
AI has arrived surrounded by unprecedented hype driven by a tech industry desperate to maintain its unprecedented valuation based on its own promises of endless financial growth. Despite the fact that almost all of AI’s real-world implementations have proved underwhelming, AI is projected to be worth more than $16 trillion—a number that only makes sense if AI replaces vast swathes of the wage-earning human workforce. To justify that level of “value,” every story about AI must be presented as inevitable, world-changing disruption. Even the tales of the robot apocalypse are a calculated attempt to bolster the fearsome power of AI.
For Doctorow, it is imperative to see through that hype to the real story, to understand the technology not just for what it does, but for who it does it to and who it does it for. From that point of view, the story of AI is indeed dramatic and unprecedented, having generated an investment bubble so big that it endangers the entire world economy. In The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI—as he so successfully did in Enshittification—Doctorow recounts both how we found ourselves in this dire situation and how we can get through it, to a life “after” AI in which the tools work for us, not the other way around.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Praise for this book
"[Doctorow] resembles the great rock critics of an earlier era, a high-tech Greil Marcus or even a Lester Bangs. He possesses a useful combination of real knowledge and close observation . . . He is superb, as expected, on the anatomy of Silicon Valley rhetoric and self-aggrandizement . . . He also makes one of the most convincing arguments I have read about what will happen when the A.I. bubble pops." —Stephen Marche, The New York Times Book Review
"Doctorow speeds through this entertaining primer with his usual vivid analogies, righteous ire and snarky asides . . . [He] isn’t animated by the headline-grabbing concerns, whether existential risk or AI psychosis, deepfake porn or election disinformation, because those are unintended consequences. His target is the revenue model and the bubble it has created: 'To be an effective AI critic, you need to strike at the source of AI’s power, which is the investment capital it attracts.'" —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
"An eye-opening take on AI . . . A sharply worded, irreverent, and deadly serious call to see through the sleight-of-hand performance of AI promoters." —Kirkus Reviews
About the AuthorCory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. He is the author of many books, including The Lost Cause, a solarpunk science-fiction novel of hope amidst the climate emergency. His nonfiction book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation is a Big Tech disassembly manual. Other recent books include Enshittification; Red Team Blues, a science fiction crime thriller; Chokepoint Capitalism, nonfiction about monopoly and creative labor markets; the Little Brother series for young adults; In Real Life, a graphic novel; and the picture book Poesy the Monster Slayer. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
Title: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI : How to Think About Artificial Intelligence—Before It's Too Late
Author(s): Cory Doctorow
ISBN: 9780374621575
Copyright 2026
Release Date: June 23, 2026
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Countries: United States, Canada | Learn more about available countries
Language: English
Format: ePub | Learn More about our supported formats
Dragonmount is a proud provider of DRM-free eBooks. By purchasing any eBook from our store, you are not only helping support our website, but you are helping small businesses thrive in a market traditionally dominated by large companies. Learn more in our eBook FAQ.
About The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI : How to Think About Artificial Intelligence—Before It's Too Late by Cory Doctorow
"[Doctorow] resembles the great rock critics of an earlier era, a high-tech Greil Marcus or even a Lester Bangs." —Stephen Marche, The New York Times Book Review
A short, provocative guide to what's good, bad, and stupid about AI and the discourse around AI, by the author of Enshittification.
In modern tech parlance, a centaur is a person who is able to use technology to be a better, more productive version of themself. A reverse centaur is a person who is forced by technology to work at an inhuman pace—a driver made to deliver all day long, nonstop; a warehouse worker made to work without food or bathroom breaks; a programmer made to crank out impossible amounts of code.
The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI is not another anti-AI screed. Cory Doctorow uses AI in his work every day. As a creative person, he has no moral or dogmatic issue with AI—he thinks the technology is useful, even exciting, and full of potential. And yet.
AI has arrived surrounded by unprecedented hype driven by a tech industry desperate to maintain its unprecedented valuation based on its own promises of endless financial growth. Despite the fact that almost all of AI’s real-world implementations have proved underwhelming, AI is projected to be worth more than $16 trillion—a number that only makes sense if AI replaces vast swathes of the wage-earning human workforce. To justify that level of “value,” every story about AI must be presented as inevitable, world-changing disruption. Even the tales of the robot apocalypse are a calculated attempt to bolster the fearsome power of AI.
For Doctorow, it is imperative to see through that hype to the real story, to understand the technology not just for what it does, but for who it does it to and who it does it for. From that point of view, the story of AI is indeed dramatic and unprecedented, having generated an investment bubble so big that it endangers the entire world economy. In The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI—as he so successfully did in Enshittification—Doctorow recounts both how we found ourselves in this dire situation and how we can get through it, to a life “after” AI in which the tools work for us, not the other way around.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Praise for this book
"[Doctorow] resembles the great rock critics of an earlier era, a high-tech Greil Marcus or even a Lester Bangs. He possesses a useful combination of real knowledge and close observation . . . He is superb, as expected, on the anatomy of Silicon Valley rhetoric and self-aggrandizement . . . He also makes one of the most convincing arguments I have read about what will happen when the A.I. bubble pops." —Stephen Marche, The New York Times Book Review
"Doctorow speeds through this entertaining primer with his usual vivid analogies, righteous ire and snarky asides . . . [He] isn’t animated by the headline-grabbing concerns, whether existential risk or AI psychosis, deepfake porn or election disinformation, because those are unintended consequences. His target is the revenue model and the bubble it has created: 'To be an effective AI critic, you need to strike at the source of AI’s power, which is the investment capital it attracts.'" —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
"An eye-opening take on AI . . . 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 is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. He is the author of many books, including The Lost Cause, a solarpunk science-fiction novel of hope amidst the climate emergency. His nonfiction book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation is a Big Tech disassembly manual. Other recent books include Enshittification; Red Team Blues, a science fiction crime thriller; Chokepoint Capitalism, nonfiction about monopoly and creative labor markets; the Little Brother series for young adults; In Real Life, a graphic novel; and the picture book Poesy the Monster Slayer. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
Title: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI : How to Think About Artificial Intelligence—Before It's Too Late
Author(s): Cory Doctorow
ISBN: 9780374621575
Copyright 2026
Release Date: June 23, 2026
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Countries: United States, Canada | Learn more about available countries
Language: English
Format: ePub | Learn More about our supported formats
Dragonmount is a proud provider of DRM-free eBooks. By purchasing any eBook from our store, you are not only helping support our website, but you are helping small businesses thrive in a market traditionally dominated by large companies. Learn more in our eBook FAQ.
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